Blue Coats and Guarding the Rifts
by Colleen
Summary: You wouldn't think that Jack having a backup coat and uniform would have been a bad idea, but when rifts, hellmouths and Halloween combine Xander ends up in a great coat of trouble. BtVS/Torchwood crossover.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Torchwood belong to their perspective owners, I am not one of them. I'm just borrowing them for entertainment purposes and no money shall be made from this entertainment.

Author's note: Yes, I should be found and stopped, but I had to do it. Torchwood crosses with BtVS in YAHF. Poor Xander, he won't know what hit him.

Warning: I often follow the episodes to a point, mostly to set up areas where they will diverge due to new events. If you don't like episode rehashes, this may not be for you.

There will be smut, there will be slash (hey, it's Torchwood) and there will swearing and violence.

And yes, I am still working on the Sweeney Todd crossover.

Blue Coats and Guarding the Rifts

by Colleen

Started November 1, 2008

Chapter 1

_Clothes make a statement. Costumes tell a story. _

_**~Mason Cooley**_

The parcel went into the mail on September 27th. In the normal course of things, even with the war going on, it would have easily arrived at its destination by the end of the month. Unfortunately an accident, involving a speeding car and a recent rainfall, had rendered the delivery address unreadable and the package was being held at the general post office of its destination city, to be sent back to the return address in London as undeliverable.

At 3:19 am on October 1st something intervened and the package left the post office. Thankfully no one was around to see it leave, which was just as well as they would have been dragged away with it and at that time of night there wouldn't have been anyone there to hear them scream.

********

At 10 am on October 1st, when Ethan Rayne stepped into the empty store to await the moving truck and hired help that would turn the lonely space he was standing in into a costume shop for a month, he was rather surprised to find a single large package, wrapped in brown butcher's paper and twine, sitting in the middle of an otherwise bare floor.

He approached it carefully. This, after all, was the Hellmouth and it was entirely possible that something might pop out of the innocent looking package and attempt to eat him. He gave the parcel a careful prod with his foot and when it didn't react he bent over and picked it up. He frowned at it, and only just managed to stop himself from giving it a shake in an attempt to try and figure out what was in it.

He carried it over to the sales counter that was part of the limited built in pieces that came with the shop. Laying it down carefully on the glass top he squinted at it for a moment, before sighing and digging out the reading glasses he kept trying to pretend he didn't need. With those firmly seated on his nose he took another look at his unexpected gift.

Frowning was once again called for as the parcel had obviously suffered recent water damage. The ink of the recipients name and address was faded, smeared and had run until it had hit the bottom edge of the paper the box was wrapped in. It now held more in common with the ink blots that psychiatrists use to make one look at to determine a man's sanity, or lack there of, than the neat writing it probably had once been.

The return address had survived the damage and was for a tailor shop in London. A tailor shop Ethan had heard of, but only because his grandfather had lamented more than once about its loss in the London Blitz. The postmark was also for London and the date on it was September 27th, which would have meant that it had been mailed a few days ago, if it wasn't for the fact that the year was listed as 1940.

Fifty-seven years out of place.

Ethan picked the package up again and tilted it back and forward in his hands for a moment before putting it back down and pulling out a folding knife. He was not one to deny his curiosity. In fact he was not one to deny himself much of anything, unless abstaining was the key to getting what he next wanted.

The blade was sharp and he carefully cut away the twine and then with just as much care he pulled the paper away to reveal a box of the type that a clothing shop would have used in days gone by. On top of the box an envelope had been taped down. Ethan pulled it off with some difficulty, the tape still strong, which was odd for something that, given its age, should have been dried and flaking by now. On the envelope was the word Captain, written in a style that, while masculine, still reminded Ethan of his mother's graceful hand.

The flap on the envelope had not been sealed and Ethan flipped it open, pulling out and unfolding a single sheet of paper. Not surprisingly it was a letter, one written by the same hand that had signed the envelope. Ethan shoved his glasses a little further up his nose and began to read.

Dear Sir,

Enclosed please find one (1) RAF wool great coat, one (1) RAF uniform jacket, one (1) pair RAF uniform slacks, two (2) dress shirts, one (1) belt, one (1) pair of braces and two (2) ties.

We apologise for the delay in repairing the coat and uniform, but the damage was, as I am sure you remember, quite extensive. We hope that this did not cause any problems, as you did specify that there was no hurry for the items as you have a spare coat and uniform to fall back on. The shirts, belt, braces and ties have been sent with the repaired items and they complete the order you placed with us when you left the coat and uniform for repair.

We have sent this parcel to the usual address in Cardiff and we hope it finds you well in these troubling and trying times. Thank you as always for your patronage.

Sincerely,

Simon Weeks

Master Tailor

Weeks and Sons

London, England

An address in Cardiff. Well that might explain a few things. Cardiff was… different, or at least Ethan had always thought so and he wasn't the only magic user that felt the same way. Actually now that he considered it, there was something about Sunnydale that reminded him of Cardiff. Not the town itself, but something, something not very nice.

Hmm, he'd never actually considered the possibility that there could be an active Hellmouth in Cardiff. He'd never stuck around the place long enough to find out. Forget living there, just visiting it had always invoked a feeling of vertigo in him. A type of dizziness that he could usually only get by standing teetering on the edge of something that went down a very, very long way. Still, he doubted that whatever it was, was a Hellmouth. While Cardiff did feel dangerous to those with magical senses, it also felt neutral. As if what ever happened, for good or ill, wasn't its fault, but was rather a matter of luck and timing.

Ethan shook his head over his sudden flight of fancy and put it aside to think about another day. He read the missive over one more time, smirking down at the letter in his hand as he did, before opening the box. Inside he found a vintage World War II RAF uniform and coat that looked very much like it had been packed into its box on September 27th 1997 and not September 27th 1940. He pulled each piece out and inspected them, almost expecting to find the unknown Captain's name sewn into them somewhere, smirking even wider when he didn't.

A vintage World War II Royal Air Force uniform and coat sitting in a soon to be costume shop with no way to find its original owner. Well, he was sure it would make someone a fabulous Halloween costume and it would be interesting to see just what effect something that had been real, that had belonged to someone real, would actually do to someone wearing it as a costume.

And at the very least, if he tracked them down before the spell wore off, he might be able to find out what the Captain's name had been.

********

Xander could not believe how his last two days were going. First he almost got pummelled by Larry, a usual occurrence sure, but never a fun one. Next he gets saved from said pummelling by Buffy, also not an unusual occurrence, the being saved part at least. The fact that it had been from a high school bully and not a vampire or other denizen of the night however, had caused a blow to both his ego and his rep. Better by far to take his lumps in school than be saved by a girl, something he very, very carefully explained to Buffy (hey, he wasn't stupid, he knew she could snap him in half, but sometimes you need to fight your own battles).

After all of that he got volunteered for trick or treat babysitting duty and had to scrap up a costume on a limited budget, which he had done, thank you very much. Then, on the way home from the costume shop Xander had the joy of another run in with Larry where the macho jerk had accidentally on purpose snapped the plastic rifle he'd bought for his soldier costume in half. Which was why on Halloween day, just after school, he was stopping by Ethan's shop in an attempt to get another rifle before he ran home to throw on the rest of his costume and head over to pick up the girls.

********

Ethan looked up as a young man barged into his shop, ready to tell the teenager that he was about to close up. Business had been very good and by this point he didn't have much left to sell.

"I just need a plastic rifle," the boy said as he blew by on his way to the bins of replica weapons. Apparently he had picked up on Ethan's 'we're closed' face and chose to head him off before he could say anything. The boy was obviously trying to be quick, but he wasn't going to be having much luck, as business really had been very good. There were going to be a lot of guns out there tonight. Too bad they wouldn't do much against the other things that were going to be out there.

********

Xander quickly pawed his way through the bins and then looked around blindly, hoping that the rifles had just been moved to another part of the store. He looked over at the sales guy who was looking at him with a raised eyebrow and an amused expression.

"Ah, I don't suppose you have any toy rifles hiding somewhere in the store?"

The guy shook his head. "Sorry, sold the last one an hour ago. Could I interest you in something smaller? I still have a few handguns left."

Xander felt his shoulders slump and he shook his head. "Nah, never mind, I'll just have to make do with the fatigues I have at home."

The guy looked strangely upset at the thought of Xander not having a gun and offered to make a quick check of the store to see if someone hadn't changed their minds about buying one and gone and left it in some strange, out of the way place.

"I don't want a be a trouble."

"No trouble, why don't you see if someone didn't think it would be funny to stuff one of them in the bins of magic staffs and broomsticks," he pointed towards the section of the store that seemed dedicated to fairytale creatures, "and I'll check in the costumes."

Xander gave a nod and went to check. Sadly he didn't find a rifle, although he did wonder if the toy lawnmower really belonged in that section and if it didn't, just where did it belong? Xander sighed and threw up his hands in defeat, incomplete costume it was going to have to be. He turned and headed back to the salesman, not really expecting him to have had any luck either and found him standing in front of what looked to Xander like a replica of a WWII RAF uniform (he might not be an expert on militaria, but he still had the knowledge of multiply reruns of Hogan's Heroes to fall back on).

"Any luck?" Xander asked him.

The guy looked at him and shook his head. "No, sorry." He turned his head to look at the costume again. "You know, I was really hoping that someone would rent this costume, it's too good to have to sit Halloween out."

Xander shook his head. "Yeah, I'm surprised no one wanted it. I would if I could afford it, but just buying a second rifle was going to wipe out what little money I have at the moment."

The guy looked at him with a perplexed expression. "What do you mean, a second rifle?"

"I bought one here yesterday, but it met with an accident," he said, and then under his breath he add, "named Larry."

Xander was about to thank the salesman for his help when he noticed a purely evil grin stretch across the man's face. "Well we can't have defective merchandise stop you from having the perfect costume." He plucked the uniform off the rack and moved to hand it to Xander. Startled he moved back a half step. "I really can't afford..."

"Nonsense, consider it a favour to me, I would really like to see this costume come to life tonight, as it were, and besides, I actually got it as a free bonus when I was setting up the store, so it isn't like it will cost me anything to lend it out to you."

Xander looked at the costume with something like longing etched on his face, but even he knew that in Sunnydale looking a gift horse in mouth wasn't just common sense, it was pretty much a necessity if you wanted to stay alive past the Tuesday of any given week.

Of course, today was Friday.

Somehow he didn't think that would save him if there was anything hinky going on though.

"How come someone hasn't already rented it?" There had be something wrong with it, right?

The guy looked the costume over and gave a little shrug. "I really don't know. It's a very nicely done costume, although.... it is incomplete now that I think of it. I don't actually have the hat or shoes that should have gone with the set. That may be why no one ever committed to renting it. I also had a couple of shoppers decide against it as they felt it would have been too hot to wear the great coat for long, even if it is the end of October."

Actually, although he wouldn't be telling the boy this, Ethan had noticed that everyone who had shown any interest in the uniform had changed their minds about renting it just as soon as they'd touched it. Why, he wasn't sure. The uniform did seem to have a bit of an energy field around it that had nothing to do with the spells Ethan had laid over it. He suspected that it might be some kind of a spell, but since he didn't recognize it and it didn't clash with the changing spell, he'd ignored it.

Maybe it was an anti theft spell? It did only seemed to affect someone if they were thinking about wearing it. Of course, that didn't explain why everyone who'd touched the thing went off to pick out a costume that was as light hearted as they could find. The uniform appeared to be directly responsible for Ethan having rented out all of the Marx Brother's costumes he'd had in stock, including the Zeppo one (where did that one come from anyway?), every adult sized clown suit, furry animal costume and in one interesting turn of events, one customer, who didn't seem the type, had even decided to rent a dress and go in drag.

Ethan was really curious to see how that might turn out.

"Well, I can wear my own shoes, live without the cap and I will be outside so overheating probably won't be a problem." Ethan brought his attention back to the boy as he said that.

"Great, just let me get the rental form filled out and it's all yours for the night." Instead of handing it over to Xander Ethan carried the uniform, coat and the bag of extras around the counter and bagged them, so that the boy wouldn't have the chance to touch the uniform and change his mind. He suspected that as soon as he got it home, even if the costume did disturb him, he'd still end up wearing it. Ethan pulled out a rental form and got the boy to fill in his name, address and the rest of the stuff that made this exchange seem legit. While he was doing so Ethan had a sudden thought and he fished a standard plastic revolver with a cheesy plastic holster out of a near by box and slid it into the bag with the costume. At... he looked at the rental sheet for a name, at Xander's questioning look he just shrugged and said, "every officer needs a side arm."

********

Jack did a full 360 degree turn as he took in the sight of a not so quiet night in what looked like Medium Town America.

What the hell? Had he gone and fallen through the rift or something? The last thing he could remember was dropping his uniform off at his tailor's in London, not even sure he'd be getting it back, what with the Blitz and all, and the next thing he knew, he was here. Wherever here was.

Well wherever here was it was going to be an unholy mess to clean up. Everywhere there were little aliens, big aliens, some things that reminded him far too much of the run in he'd had with old ones, the so called fairies that had slaughtered his squad back in the early 1900's and mixed in with all of that there were a lot of screaming, freaked out humans in fancy dress.

Wherever this was, they were probably going to have to retcon the town's water supply once it was over.

A growl to his left reminded him that getting killed wasn't really something he wanted to do tonight, especially since his spare coat and uniform were at the tailor's, so he pulled his revolver.

"Xander, no!"

He turned to his right to see a very fetching young redhead, wearing close to nothing, run up to him. It was a pity that she was really too young for him, although that didn't mean he couldn't take a minute to appreciate what she was willing to show off.

The growling thing to his left chose that moment to jump him.

********

Willow screamed Xander's name as he went down under a mass of scales and muscles. Then she blinked in shock as Xander rolled with the creature, pinning it to the ground with arms and legs as he looked at it with perplexed curiosity.

"Didn't I use to date your brother?" He asked it, which caused the creature to stop struggling and take a closer look at the human on top of him. Willow, for her part, stuck her finger in one of her ears and gave it a little wiggle, certain that she hadn't heard Xander right.

The creature obviously decided that Xander had never dated any member of its family and roared at him. Xander's face scrunched up in disgust and he let go with his right arm long enough to plough a fist into the creatures face. The thing went limp under him and he climbed off, shaking his head.

"Breath like a methane reactor going critical, jaw like spun glass."

"Xander..."

Jack looked back at the girl, who was standing there, hugging herself as if she were cold, which she just might be in those clothes.

"Sorry, miss, I'm not Xander, sadly enough," he said as he gave her an inviting smile and another look over. Then he turned his attention away from her, making a search of the ground until he found the gun he'd dropped when he'd been attacked. He picked it up, straightening to find the young lady in front of him.

"But, but you are Xander."

Jack smiled his best dimpled face smile as he holstered his weapon. He suspected that the girl was going into shock and he spoke quietly to her.

"Sorry to disappoint, Captain Jack Harkness, at your service." He gave a little bow and held out his hand, intending to take hers and give it a kiss. Instead his hand went through hers and he stepped back, pulling his gun again as he did.

"Wow, that has got to be one of the best holograms I've ever seen. So, where are you really?"

"I'm not a hologram," she snapped back at him, sounding and looking like she wasn't far from panicking, "and I'm laying over there... I think I'm dead, actually."

Circling the hologram carefully and fully expecting to end up regretting this, Jack headed over to where the girl pointed. He found a sheet covered body collapsed on the ground and pulled the material away from it to find the physical form of the hologram, girl, whatever, who was standing next to him. A quick check of her pulse showed that she was stone cold dead.

"Xander, I think everyone's become their costumes. I was dressed as a ghost and now, I think I am one."

Jack shook his head. "That isn't possible."

Jack actually meant that her being a ghost wasn't possible, but Willow thought he meant the part about becoming their costumes. She nodded towards a darkened window of the house she'd 'died' beside. "Check out your refection, then tell me it isn't possible.

Jack frowned at her, but turned towards the window anyway.

Holy crap, he was a teenager again. What, not being able to die wasn't bad enough, now he was going to have to do it and puberty at the same time?

"Xander?" The girl, ghost, whatever asked him quietly.

Jack's brow wrinkled up and he took a closer look at his wavering reflection. Teenager yes, but not him as a teenager. Whoever this body belonged to, it wasn't him.

"I don't think I'm Xander at the moment, even if I do seem to be borrowing his body."

"Oh."

He smiled at her. "Don't worry, I'm sure he's still in here somewhere." At least he hoped he was, as the thought that this girl's Xander could right at this moment be wandering around in his body was enough to make him break out in a cold sweat. His men had life and death to deal with, they didn't need some lost teenager trying to fake his way through leading them. He'd get them dead.

"I don't suppose you know anyone who might have some idea of what's going on here?"

It was a long shot, but the fact that she hadn't joined in with the general running and screaming that everyone else seemed to be doing gave him the feeling that she might have a better grasp of what was happening than anyone else would. Besides, a native guide was better than floundering around in the dark, as equally as lost as her Xander was.

The girl thought for a moment. "Giles, he'll know what to do, or if he doesn't he'll know where to find out what to do. I think he said he'd be at the library tonight, catching up."

"Okay, then lets head to the library." He reached down and pulled Willow's body up, settling it over his shoulders in a fireman's carry. "Lead the way."

********

On their way to the school library Jack opted to hot wire an SUV, since carrying a dead body through the centre of town while being attacked by costume affected people seemed like a bad idea. Of course, that was also the moment when Jack realized that he didn't have his wrist strap, which would have shortened the time it took to steal a car from minutes to seconds. He went through his pockets, but found them bereft of the items he'd usually had on hand. He did however find a wallet and a set of keys he'd never seen before. A quick look at the wallet showed a photo id student card that featured the face he'd seen in the window earlier. The keys, bless his heart, were using a mini multi-use tool with advertising from a car mechanic on it as a key chain.

Of course all of that searching turned out to be unnecessary as the first SUV they came to had its doors hanging open with its keys still in the ignition. Its owners had obviously left in a hurry. And here he'd been hoping to impress the redhead by deftly defeating the vehicles security system.

Jack loaded Willows body into the back and took the driver's side, which felt like it was on the wrong side of the car, as he'd become use to British vehicles that were set up for driving on the left side of the road. Willow got in on the passenger side.

"I can't shut the door."

Which was kind of weird when he thought about it, because she could sit. Still, Jack got out and did a quick jog around the vehicle, shutting the door. Then he turned and punched the demon who had just tried to sneak up on him in the stomach, following that shot with a left hook to its jaw. The thing was staggered, but not down, however Jack didn't have the time to play with it and he sent the thing sprawling with a shove of his foot, before dashing back around the car. He hopped in, started it and pulled away from the demon in what almost looked like one smooth action, rather than a series of them.

The girl was looking at him in wide eyed terror as he drove.

"Something the matter?"

"I..I..I.." She moved and for a moment Jack thought she was going to try to attack him, but when she aborted the move suddenly, he realized that she had been intending to hug him.

"I was afraid that you were going to get hurt there for a moment."

But he heard what she didn't say. She'd thought he'd been about to get killed.

Jack was just opening his mouth to reassure her, to tell her that she didn't have to worry about him, because he couldn't actually die, when he had a sudden epiphany. He couldn't die, but that didn't mean that Xander's body held the same ability. Just because he'd become his costume, and didn't he still need to figure out how that worked, but just because the boy had Jack's mind didn't mean he had Jack's body. After all, he still looked like Xander.

"Um, you're driving on the left side of the road."

Jack swore under his breath and yanked the steering wheel over so the car was once again on the right side of the road.

"Sorry, I've been living in Wales for.... for a few years now."

Willow just nodded.

"So," Jack said, "tell me how to get to the library.

If the situation hadn't been so tense he'd have enjoyed the SUV more, he'd never driven one before, but he liked how it handled. Its style also placed his current time period to somewhere around the end of the 20th century and the start of the 21st.

On the drive over he finally learned Willow's name and by the time they got to the library they had picked up a few people along the way. Buffy, who appeared to be seriously time displaced, had shrieked at the SUV, calling it a demon before promptly fainting. Cordelia, a young woman who looked very, very lovely in her cat costume, even with the tears at one shoulder and Angel, a young man who set off Jack's danger instincts to a new and unique level, which was okay, because he certainly set off a few other instincts as well. Despite the current danger, or perhaps because of it, or more likely because Jack was just Jack, he had to admit that wherever he was, they certainly did grow them cute around here.

They barged into the library, Angel carrying Buffy and Jack carrying Willows body, with the two girls bringing up the rear. Their entrance nearly gave the librarian a heart attack if the sudden scattering of cataloguing cards was anything to go by. Giles turned out to be an older man, or at least older than the kids, as he was probably in his early forties. He was also British enough to add starch to anyone's shorts, Jack's especially. Still, he decided to leave the flirting for later, assuming that there would be a later.

He let Willow explain the current events to the man, since she seemed to know more about what was going on anyway.

"So," the librarian said as they tried to figure out what exactly was happening. "Willow was dressed as a ghost," he looked down at her dead body laid out on the reading table and swallowed back a lump, "and now she is a ghost. Buffy was dressed as a noble woman and now she is," he looked at the young girl in a ball gown, slumped over in a chair, "apparently unconscious from fear once again. Xander went as a World War Two Royal Air Force Captain, who for some reason still has an American accent..."

"American volunteer," Jack added helpfully.

"Ah, and Cordelia went as a cat and is, still herself. Why?"

Jack noticed as Willow forcefully clamped down on saying anything about Cordelia being catty even if she hadn't become one.

"Better quality costume?" Cordelia suggested.

For a moment Giles looked like he was going to dismiss Cordelia's suggestion as silly, then he thought about it. "Where did you get your costume?"

"Party Town of course." Cordelia said, as if shopping anywhere else at Halloween would have been completely beneath her.

"And you three?"

Xander just looked back at him blankly and if Buffy had been conscious she would probably have been equally as blank, but he saw Willow start and then frown in thought. "We all went to a new place, Ethan's"

Jack saw Giles' eyes narrow in anger and smiled.

Bingo!

********

Whoever this Ethan guy was, his security was crap. All six of them could have snuck up on him, even with Buffy in the group. Thankfully they'd left her, Cordelia and Willow's body back at the library with Angel to guard them. So it was just him, Giles and ethereal Willow doing a break and enter into a costume shop on Halloween night.

All three of them moved into the back of the store and stopped suddenly at the sight of an altar with a two faced statue on it.

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me." Jack said, shaking his head in denial. No way, no how was some spell casting mumbo jumbo responsible for this mess. There were plenty of alien species that could have pulled the mind switch. Although he had to admit there weren't many that could have pulled off the time travel as well, and there were even fewer who would have bothered.

"That's Janus, a Roman mystical God," Giles said, as he looked around for the mage that was using the altar.

"What does it mean?" Willow asked, her eyes focused on the statue itself.

"Primarily, it represents the division of self. Male and female. Light and dark..."

"Chunky and creamy style. No, sorry. That's peanut butter."

Jack pulled his revolver and aimed it at the smirking costumer while Giles stepped protectively in front of Willow.

"Xander, Willow, get out of here now."

Jack shook his head. "Not a chance."

"Now!"

Jack scowled at the librarian, but backed away, escorting Willow to the door of the shop, his hand hovering above the small of her back as he was physically unable to touch her.

"Willow, you get back to the library. I'll make sure that Giles gets out of here safely."

Willow shook her head vigorously. "He told both of us to leave."

"Like I said, not a chance. Giles doesn't look like he's thinking with his head at the moment, so someone needs to stay and make sure he does. You should head back and let everyone know what's happening. Besides, it would probably be best for you to be close to your body for when we manage to find a way to fix this."

Willow smiled at him, although it was one that held shadows at its edges. "Thanks for not saying 'if' we fix this."

"We'll fix this," he told her, pouring every bit of sincerity into his words as he could, "now get going."

Willow nodded and took off running. Jack watched her go for a few moments, admiring her form and thinking that whoever Xander was, he was one lucky kid to have a Willow in his life. He smiled one of his rare, true, sadly contemplative smiles and headed back in, raising an eyebrow as he heard the sound of flesh hitting flesh, and not in a fun, naked sort of way.

Leaning in the doorway to the back room, Jack watched as Giles professionally worked over the idiot who had apparently orchestrated tonight's FUBAR. Jack raised one of his eyebrows again. Who knew that a librarian could be so vicious and look so hot while doing it.

"And you said Rupert the Ripper was long gone," Ethan gasped out from his place on the floor. Ethan looked up and saw Jack. "Ah, the good Captain. I don't suppose I could have your name? The package I found your uniform in had suffered some water damage, so I never did find out who you were."

"Ethan," Giles said through gritted teeth, "how do I stop the spell."

"Oh, come on Ripper, surely you can give me a few moments for curiosities sake."

Giles kicked him in the stomach, hard enough that Ethan rose several inches in the air and seemed to hover for a moment as if in an attempt to defy gravity, before thudding back to Earth very much unable to fly.

Ethan gasped around bruised ribs, "Janus, break the statue."

Giles grabbed the statue and threw it hard against a wall, shattering it into pieces. Jack, who'd been about to suggest that Giles work Ethan over a little more before believing the first thing that Ethan told him froze with his mouth halfway open and shuddered.

Xander took in a great heaping breath of air, let it out in a series of pants and bent over with his hands on his thighs. When he looked up he saw that Ethan had disappeared and Giles was looking around the place with a seriously pissed off expression on his face.

"G-man?"

"Ah, Xander, you must be back, the Captain was much more respectful."

"Yeah well, that's because he thought you were hot." Xander's eyes flew all the way open and he slapped both hands over his mouth, mortified.

"He thought I was what?"

"Nothing, never mind."

Giles looked for a moment like he was going to push the issue, then he obviously decided that he really just didn't want to know.

********

Spike gave a frustrated moan as all the demons and whatnots in his general area suddenly became frightened whiney children. Ah well, it had been neat while it lasted, but he'd really hoped to have had a run in with the Slayer. From what Dru had said yesterday she would have been easy picking tonight. Now though, she was probably back to her usual resourceful self.

Damn.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2 

_The mind, once expanded to the dimensions of larger ideas, never returns to its original size. _

_**~Oliver Wendell Holmes**_

Xander, being Xander, chose not to talk about who he had really been on Halloween. Not that anyone was asking, as they had no reason to doubt that what they'd seen of Jack was all of Jack. Not surprising, as the man had at one time been a very successful con man and he'd never lost his ability to work people, even after he'd given it up.

Of course, if all he'd been was just a con man, then Xander could have lived with that. He himself had a few less than honest family members, so having one uploaded into his brain would have been survivable.

Too bad then that Jack hadn't been just a con man.

He'd also been, or still was, an immortal time traveller from three thousand years in the future. One who, up until World War Two at least, had worked for a terrifying British secret service thingy that hunted down alien life forms and alien tech so they could study them, strip them for information and prepare to do the same to the next set of aliens, who would probably be even scarier than the last.

Which was why Torchwood out and out terrified him. The possibility that aliens were real dumped on top of the fact that demons and vampires were real was actually less frightening than the memories he held of that place. Of course, that assumed that Torchwood and Jack actually did exist and that his memories hadn't been created by the Halloween spell in the first place.

Given the way his luck usually ran, he'd put money on them being real.

The messed up thing was that Xander was pretty sure that he could have shoved all of Jack's past into some dark unused corner of his mind, only bothering to look at it when he really needed the solutions that the information of Jack's life could give them. He really, really could have, if it hadn't been for the sex.

Jack had, over the time of his very long life, had more sex than Xander, much to his shock and surprise, had ever thought possible. And Jack had it with everyone. Male, female, both, undecided and otherwise, if it existed then the Captain had probably tried it.

Halloween morning Xander woke up secure in the knowledge that he only liked girls, sexually. On November the 1st he woke up liking everyone sexually, and wondered why he wasn't just a little more freaked out about it.

Oh wait, that would be the shock.

When it wore off he had a few more shocks, the worst one probably being the brief moment when he'd thought that it was a shame that Principal Snyder was such an asshole, as he was cute enough to shag.

Xander was sad to realized that even by the 51st century man hadn't found a way to scrub out one's brain.

Still he'd managed to keep Jack out of his life for the last couple of weeks, aside from the occasional inappropriate remark, some of which he might have said himself anyway and others that he'd manage to voice under his breath. He also hadn't had much time to think about it as they'd all been rather busy, dealing first with an old friend of Buffy's, who had tried to sell her out to the local vamps and second, handling a return engagement with Giles' old friend Ethan Rayne, who had tried to use them as something to hide behind when his and Giles' unsavoury past came back to haunt them in the form of the demon Eyghon. It was shocking that Giles had actually been a stupid teenager at one time, unfortunately it was also a bit of a turn on that he had also been a 'bad boy' in his misspent youth.

Yep, that was it, he was going to invent the brain scrubber if it was the last thing he did.

Xander liked girls, and he wanted to keep that exclusive. Jack, or at least Jack's memories, liked pretty much everyone, sexually. That at least gave Xander a sort of common ground about liking girls. Therefore he could simply ignore anything to do with liking anything other than girls, except in a platonic, manly, watch an American football game together sort of way.

Besides, according to Buffy she had pretty much lost the majority of her noble woman's memories and reactions, so he probably would lose Jack too, it was just taking longer with him because Jack had been a little over a hundred years old in 1940 while Buffy's memories had been for someone who wasn't even twenty yet.

And after all, it hadn't even been three weeks since Halloween.

********

A couple of days later, Xander walked down the school hallway and past a table where the guidance councillor was taping up a sign that said VOCATIONAL APTITUDE TESTS. He walked on with a little shake of his head, entering the library moments later.

"Hey Xander."

Willow was sitting at the main reading table, flipping through one of Giles' dusty old books while consulting the laptop computer beside her.

"Hey right back at you Wills."

Xander smiled hugely at Willow, looking slightly maniacal as he did. Willow of course was the fly in the ointment of his just pay attention to the girls plan, because she was a girl.

A very pretty, amazing, wonderful girl.

Having seen her from Jack's point of view made it very difficult to not see her as something more than just a best friend. Xander hated to admit it, but when it came to Willow he was something of an ostrich. He hadn't wanted to see that she was a desirable young woman and he really hadn't wanted to realize that she was interested in something more than just friendship with him.

He wasn't sure he could or even should do anything about it. No matter how many times he argued the situation over with himself he still wasn't willing to risk their friendship for something different. Hence the hiding behind goofy, over cheery Xander.

"It looks like they're ready to go with those career tests."

"Great," she said, quickly shutting down her computer and getting up to join Xander near the library doors.

Xander shook his head. "Yeah, great for you, you're not going to test out as a sanitation engineer or something equally as glamorous."

"Come on Xander, don't be so down on yourself," she said, hip checking him on her way out the doors.

Xander followed her with a raised eyebrow and a smile, until he realized what he was thinking and wiped the expression off of his face. They met up with Buffy on the way to career hell and when they got there all three of them grabbed forms and pencils and sat down to start filling them out.

"Hmm," Xander read off the first question. "Are you a people person or do you prefer keeping your own company?" Xander tapped the eraser end of the pencil against his teeth in thought.

"What if I'm a people person who..." Has the memories of a Omni-sexual immortal time traveller who likes to hang out on roofs in an attempt to be closer to the stars.

"Xander?"

Xander startled out of his musing, noticing that his girls were giving him a strange look.

"What if I'm a people person who only wants to hang with the best people?" He asked as he stood and gave Buffy and Willow a squeeze hug.

"Alright, who are you and what have you done with Xander?" Buffy asked with mock seriousness.

Xander sat down again, smiling. "Hey, you know me, any excuse to hug you guys is a valid excuse."

Both girls snorted a bit at that and turned back to their questionnaires, leaving Xander to give a little mental sigh of relief as he went back to ticking in answers on his test as well.

He lasted all of three questions.

"Does anyone really believe that one multiple choice test, based on dubious psychology at that, will really tell us what we're supposed to do for the rest of our lives?"

Willow looked up at him, eyes wide, and he squashed down a sudden urge wrap his arms around her and kiss her senseless.

"I'm kind of curious to find out what sort of career I could have."

"And suck all the spontaneity out of being young and stupid? I'd rather live in the dark."

"We won't be young forever."

Xander's hand froze over his test when Willow said that. That was one of the things about Jack, and him having been Jack, that he was still worried about.

Jack was pretty much immortal and barely aged at all. Xander had been Jack on Halloween night and despite Jack's doubts on the subject it was entirely possible he would have been unable to die that night. Xander still remembered everything about Jack that Jack remembered about himself, if that had carried over, had the possible immortal part carried over as well?

"Xander?"

Xander blinked as Buffy waved a hand in front of his face.

"Are you sure you're okay? You seem really out of it today."

Xander went for goofy. "As opposed to any other day?"

"Xander."

Ack, no, no, not Willow gearing up for a resolve face. Even Jack would have been helpless under its power.

"Sorry, I just really hate these things."

"Yeah," Buffy agreed, looking at her test again. "Do I like shrubs?"

"Only if they're sapient and like to experiment, then they can be a lot of fun," Xander said, channelling Jack without thinking, as he went back to marking his test.

Both girls just stared at him, then at each other.

"Ah, what did you put?" Buffy asked Willow.

"I came down on the side of shrubs," she said, looking at her answer and wondering if she should change it.

They looked at each other again and then Buffy quickly filled in the no side of the question, while Willow erased her previous answer and did the same.

Buffy filled in a couple more questions before putting her pencil down.

"I shouldn't even be bothering with this. It's all moot-ville for me. No matter what my aptitude test says... I already know my deal."

"Yep. High risk, sub-minimum wage…" Xander said. Which, when he thought about it, didn't make any sense. If the Watcher's Council could pay the Watchers, then surely they could pay the Slayers, or at least give them a stipend. Even Torchwood knew enough to pay a decent wage to their agents for risking their lives. And Torchwood tended to die young, not as young as slayers, but still, young.

"Pointy wooden things," Bully picked up and held her pencil like a stake as she continued Xander's sentence.

"So why are you even taking the test?" Willow asked.

"It's Principal Snyder's 'hoop' of the week. He's not happy unless I'm jumping. Believe me, I wouldn't be here otherwise."

"You're not even a teensy weensy bit curious about what kind of career you could have had?" Willow asked her, illustrating the teensy weensy part of her question with her thumb and index finger. "I mean, if you weren't already the Slayer and all."

"Do the words "sealed" and "fate" ring any bells for you, Will? Why go there?" Buffy snapped back at her.

Willow turned back to her test, looking like someone had just stepped on her puppy.

"You know," Xander said, "with that kind of attitude you could have had a bright future as an employee of the DMV."

Buffy had the grace to look suitably chastened. "I'm sorry. It's just... unless hell freezes over and every vamp in Sunnydale puts in for early retirement... I'd say my future is pretty much a non-issue."

Xander gave her a little smile. "Maybe, but that doesn't mean you have to give in and let it steamroll over you. Not everything in time is a fixed point, not even destiny."

********

The rest of the test taking was somewhat quieter after that, and Xander took the time to analyze the thing, because really, there was very little that was completely innocent on the Hellmouth, and even less that was innocent in this school.

Most of the test was pretty random, questions designed to figure out a person's likes and dislikes in the most general of ways. Parts of the test though, reminded Xander of the memories Jack had of the aptitude tests he'd taken when applying to the Time Agency. Curious, he let Jack's memories reign while he filled out those parts of the test. It probably wouldn't amount to anything, whoever set these questions in place would be more likely to recruit from the Universities than the High Schools. Still, it would be interesting to see if anything came of it.

********

Xander wasn't usually one to brood, at least not without Country Music to do it along with, but Jack, while not exactly a brooder, did like to hang out on roof tops. Xander had at first fought the feeling that he needed to get somewhere high so he could think, as it made him feel a little bit too much like Batman, or worse, Angel.

Eventually though, he'd caved. Which was why he was currently dressed in Jack's great coat (something he didn't wear often, because doing so felt too right) and standing on a girder of an unfinished office building that, when finished, should have a brilliant view of the water, at least until another office building went up and cut off the view.

Xander had climbed up here to think and what he was beginning to think was that he should retcon himself.

He knew the recipe. Jack had created a number of the mixtures himself, mostly making them safer for use. While a few of the ingredients would be hard to get it wouldn't be impossible. If he wiped out about a month of his memories he would lose Halloween and then there would be no more Jack Harkness in his head, showing him things he'd never even considered before.

"Well looky here, it's one of the Slayer's puppies."

Xander froze. He knew that voice very well. It was hard to forget a vampire that had been as close to Xander's throat as Spike had been.

Xander turned towards the vampire, mouth ready with something snarky to say as his mind raced, looking for a way out of this. Spike, dressed in his signature black leather duster was a startling good looking man, or rather vampire, with bleached blonde hair and cheek bones that could cut glass. Xander realized as soon as he saw him that, what with the running and the screaming and the trying not to die, he'd never stopped to take a really good look at the latest big bad in town, because as soon as he saw Spike his mind blanked out and his jaw made a very good attempt at hitting the ground.

How the hell had he not noticed?

Jack's memory was a sucking whirlpool that dragged him under and nearly drowned him in a past not his own. So many memories here. Memories of a man with Spike's looks, Spike's attitude, but who still wasn't Spike. A different man with a different name who had meant a lot to Jack at one time. Xander's mind was swamped with good times, bad times and incredibly sex charged times and even as he pulled himself free of another man's long ago he felt his traitorous body respond to both the memories and the man currently in front of him.

If he got out of this, he was definitely retconning himself.

A look at Spike brought the sinking feeling that the vampire fully realized just how Xander had reacted to his presence and that feeling was verified when Spike gave him an evil, if slightly confused smile.

"Interesting. I remember you from parent's night. Didn't think you batted for the other team, well, okay, I didn't actually think about you at all, but now that I do, it didn't seem obvious."

Xander snapped his mouth shut and backed up against an upright girder that he had been standing beside, using the brief moment to work some spit back into his mouth.

"I'm somewhat flexible," Xander said, pretty much without thinking, as he cast about for someway off of this building that wouldn't get him dead or turned.

Spike smiled. "Could be fun."

Xander's eyes bounced wide and he felt his breath seize up in his lungs. No way, no how. He didn't care how turned on just seeing Spike had made him, there was no way that was happening.

"So," he asked, "what brings you up here?"

"Saw you didn't I. Been thinking I need something to distract the Slayer with."

"And you figured that killing one of her friends would be good because there'd be no way it wouldn't piss her off? She's already trying to kill you, you really want to make it personal?"

Spike shifted into game face. "No, I thought that turning one or more of her friends and sending them after her would keep her busy trying to stop them. I only need the distraction to last for a few days."

Fitting action to words Spike lunged at Xander. Eyes wide Xander grabbed onto the girder behind him and spun himself around it to the other side. He backed away carefully along the steel beam, wishing that he had Jack's sense of balance when it came to rooftops. Mind memories he had, but the muscle memory was something he really needed work on.

Spike chortled and spun himself around the girder to join Xander. "I like a little chase with my meal, helps the appetite."

Xander stopped backing up and shook his head. "Shall I insert 'bad cliché groan' here?"

Spike snarled at him and leapt. Xander tried to back up a little too quickly and found that the old running shoes he was wearing simple didn't have enough grip on them to pull the manoeuvre off. He suspected that he looked like a complete idiot, pin wheeling his arms through the air in an attempt to stay upright, before landing on his back, legs tangled in the great coat. The fall knocked the breath out of his body and he lay there gasping while teetering dangerously on the steel beam.

Spike chuckled. "Are you done with the trying to get away thing yet?"

Xander closed his eyes for a brief moment and acknowledged to himself that he would do anything to not be another fiend with a friend's face that Buffy would have to kill, then shook his head at Spike's question. Opening his eyes again he said one word.

"No."

Spike reached for him at the same time that Xander rolled to his right. A move that surprised the vampire, as there wasn't anything on Xander's right to roll to. Okay, so there wasn't anything to his left either, but that didn't stop the surprise.

It was a long way to the bottom and Xander fell without making a sound, although to be truthful, inside he went screaming all the way.

Spike winced as the boy landed, his upper body and head making contact with a pile of steel girders first, while the rest of him hit the ground hard enough to indent himself into the hard packed dirt. The vampire shook his head at the sight and then slowly made his way down the building. Once he'd made to back to solid ground he went and checked on Xander, to make sure that he was actually dead.

The check was somewhat redundant, as the back of the kid's head had been caved in like a melon. Spike shook his head again over the waste of a meal and studied the body.

The situation wasn't perfect, it might not even help, but if Spike just walked away now they'd probably chalk the kid's fall up to suicide, which, while not quite the distraction he had been aiming for, would do for a starter.

********

'Darkness isn't actually the same as oblivion.' The thought felt like a stray one. It came and went and whoever thought it settled down to wait for another one.

'Shouldn't dying have been harder than that?' That thought felt important, but the thinker couldn't figure out why.

The darkness went on forever, nothing moved, nothing breathed.

Nothing breathed.

'Maybe he should breath?'

********

Xander's eyes snapped open and his entire body arched up into a bridge as it struggled with pain and the sudden need to force his lungs to inflate. He wheezed, wincing as the action sent sparkles of pain through his head and he grabbed on to it, surprised to find the thing intact.

It took him a few minutes before the pain lessened enough that he could even consider standing up. He groaned as he did (in no way, shape, or form was that a whimper) and winced as he looked down at where he'd been lying. He felt his neck crack back into place as he looked up at where he had been and his headache seemed to increase as he calculated the distance. He groaned (whimpered) again as he looked back down at the pile of girders, noticing that what he'd at first glance had thought to be rust was probably blood.

His blood.

A touch at the back of his head proved that it was tender, but intact, which didn't explain why his hair was matted with semi-dried blood. Gulping slightly Xander staggered out of the construction yard and out to the street, where he made his way to the first car he could see. He crouched down beside a little import, looking into the passenger's side mirror and almost collapsed with relief when he saw his reflection in it.

He wasn't a vampire.

The relief was temporary however, as the only other way he could have survived that fall was rather apparent.

No, that didn't have to mean.... that. He'd just landed lucky and Spike hadn't bothered to check on him, after all he'd probably looked dead at that distance.

Yeah, and if you believed that then Jack at one time had probably had an asteroid he could have sold you, cheap.

Xander slid down the side of the car until he was sitting and pulled his knees up so he could rest his forehead against them. Okay, think, just because he'd survived a fall from the fifteenth floor didn't mean he was immortal, or... it didn't mean he was still immortal. It might have just been a left over from Halloween, you know, like a one time get out of jail free card, only in his case it was a one time come back to life card.

He thumped the back of his recently damaged and healed head against the car door, wincing slightly when he realized that it wasn't that healed. It was a lovely theory, one that he hoped was true, but it wasn't something he could exactly try out. If he killed himself and he came back, well then he'd know he was like Jack. If he killed himself and didn't come back his current theory would be proved, but he'd be dead. And it wasn't like he could cut himself and see how fast he healed, because Jack only healed instantly when he died and then came back to life. He did actually heal small things faster than average, although some of that may have had more to do with being from the 51st century and the changes and improvements humans had made to themselves, rather than with Jack's immortality.

Either way Xander couldn't test it, because he also healed faster than normal. While he planned to never, ever tell anyone, the hyena possession had left behind a gift of sorts. The hyena was completely gone, thank goodness, but while it had been in his body it had started to make changes to it.

When it first took over it had to constantly use large amounts of its power to make him faster, stronger, and quick to heal. So it started to change his body, so he would have those abilities without burning through its own magic to keep him that way. The changes weren't huge, it hadn't had the time for that, but it did mean that an injury that would take two to three weeks to get over might fade away in something like five to ten days.

Which was about on par with Jack's healing abilities.

Xander sighed, hauled himself to his feet and made a half hearted attempt to dust off the coat. Sitting here wasn't helping him figure anything out and the chance of running into another vampire was fairly high.

And maybe, just maybe, it was time to talk with someone.

********

Dru had been very annoyed with Spike when he'd come home that night.

"You've been playing with little Jack."

"Honest love, I haven't touched it."

She made a half hearted attempt to swat at him, but was too weak to manage it. "Not that little Jack, the other one. You really shouldn't play with him Spike, he's all wrong. Him and Big Jack, so terribly, terribly wrong." She laid back, tired, and fell into a fitful sleep as Spike watched over her, worry etched into his face.

Dalton had better damn well have gotten that key, or Dalton would be enjoying a little more painful incentive.

********

The next day, hoping to talk with Giles, Xander walked into the library to hear the end of a conversation the Watcher was having with Buffy, which appeared to be about someone stealing something from a mausoleum.

"The vampires have added breaking and entering and theft to their naughty list?"

Giles expression could have soured milk.

"Quite. We shall have to ascertain what was stolen. Xander, Buffy and I shall have to make a trip out to the cemetery to investigate."

Xander nodded, quite willing to put the discussion he'd been planning to have with Giles off until later as he still hadn't come up with an approach to the problem that he liked. "Don't forget to be back in time for the job fair. Snyder will probably try to have Buffy's head if she isn't here."

Giles just sighed and nodded, gesturing at Buffy to follow him, which she did, although she was obviously very annoyed with the librarian at the moment. Xander was glad that whatever had caused it he'd gotten to miss that part of the conversation.

********

At 2:30 pm the job fair was going strong and Xander cut through the crowd to join Willow by her side as she looked over the different displays.

"Okay Willow, I know for a fact that your name wasn't on the seminar sheets, so why are you here when you could be free."

"I'm looking for Buffy."

"She left with Giles an hour ago. Some kind of a 'field trip' deal."

Willow looked around nervously. "If she doesn't get back soon, Snyder's really...done a fantastic job setting up the fair this year, hasn't he, Xander?"

Xander blinked at the sudden change in Willow from worried to perky, understanding as

Principal Snyder marched up to them.

"Principal Snyder! Great career fair, sir. Really. In fact, I'm so inspired by your leadership I'm thinking principal school. I want to walk in your shoes. Not your actual shoes, of course. Because you're a tiny person. Not tiny in the small sense, of course, because really, given the size of your ears I suspect you're anything but tiny..."Xander winced as he realized where his mouth had gone, again. "Okay. Done now."

Thankfully neither Snyder nor, he noticed with some relief, Willow, had appeared to have actually been paying attention to the Xander babble.

"Where is she?" Snyder snarled out.

"Who?"

Xander had to admire Willow, she could make fake innocence sound almost real.

"You know who."

Not that that seemed to work on Snyder.

"Oh, you mean Buffy? I just saw her..."

"Don't feed me that I-just-saw-her-a-minute-ago-she's-around-here-somewhere story."

"But I did - see her a minute ago. And she is - around here somewhere."

"For what it's worth." Xander said, adding in his two cents worth.

"It's worth nothing, Harris. Whatever sound comes out of your mouth is a meaningless waste of breath. An airborne toxic event."

"I'm glad you feel comfortable enough to be so honest with me. And I only hope that I'm in a position one day to be as honest with you."

Snyder was looking at Xander like he was something he'd just scraped off his shoe, Xander for his part was looking back at Snyder and wondering if he could convince Torchwood, assuming once again that they were real and all his Halloween memories weren't just costume make believe come to life, that the Principal was in fact a deadly alien. After all, he might just be right about that.

"Fascinating." Snyder said, before moving off.

Xander smiled, "Well, I like to think I am." He turned to Willow. "Lovely man." Willow looked at him like he had gone mad. "That was sarcasm Will.

"Oh, good, because... Good."

Hmm, maybe she had been paying more attention to what he'd said than he'd thought. Xander mentally shook his head, better not to ask, because if he didn't bring it up then Willow would be more likely to file it away under 'I must have imagined that'.

"Well, I'd better head off, I'm sure I'm supposed to be at one of these things."

"Okay, see you."

Xander gave her a little wave as he headed away, trying to look like he knew where he was going. He hadn't told Willow, but his name hadn't been on the seminar list either, and he wasn't sure what that meant.

********

Xander was beginning to wonder if he should just pick a seminar to join, when the dulcet tones of his principal's voice asked for his attention.

"Harris."

Wow, it was truly amazing how Snyder managed to infuse his name with the sound of crushed glass in a blender. Xander turned to see the older man dwarfed by two men, one a Lieutenant in the US army and the other a Lieutenant in... Something. He wasn't a marine, because they wore green berets and this guy's hat was red.

"These men will escort you to your seminar Harris, although how you managed to get added to this group, I'll never know."

The two men didn't do more than nod, but even Xander could already tell that they didn't like Snyder anymore than he did and they'd probably know him for less than ten minutes. Which at least proved that they both had good taste .

Xander had a long way to go before he'd be able to work a con like Jack at one time could have, but he did a credible job of thanking Snyder and sounding sincere about it, before motioning to the two men to lead the way.

As he walked with them he moved his eyes front and centre, because after a few steps he'd discovered that he really had a thing for a man in uniform and his coordination would suffer greatly if kept staring at what he really wanted to look at.

Retcon, definitely retcon.

********

The two men led him outside the back of the school, to a classroom sized trailer that he'd never seen parked out there before. The inside was set up with a boardroom table, what looked like comfortable chairs around it (you never could tell with that style of chair) and a side table with a buffet lunch set up on it. Three other students were milling around. Two of them Xander didn't really know, other than in passing, but he did know that they were both Army brats and had parents that worked at the local base.

The third student, was Larry.

The two of them frowned at each other while one of the Lieutenants told him to help himself from the buffet and that the seminar would be starting shortly. Xander nodded his understanding and headed over to check out the food, not at all surprised when Larry joined him.

"Harris."

"Larry."

"How'd you end up here?"

Xander shrugged and then picked up a plate and contemplated the cheese tray. "I suspect that I just test well. You?"

"Got an uncle who's a Bird Colonel, set it up for me."

Xander nodded, then made a few choices from the buffet before heading over to the conference table. Larry did the same and then joined Xander at the table. Apparently the jock was uncomfortable enough in this setting that he was willing to latch onto anything familiar, even if it was Xander.

Xander crunched into a pickle before he gestured at the lieutenants, who were currently in conversations with the other two students.

"I know the one guy is army, but who's the other guy with."

"UNIT."

Xander suddenly found himself choking on pickle juice. That was a tick to the Torchwood is real side of the debate. Jack knew about UNIT, historically at least. He'd never actually had anything to do with them, or at least he hadn't up until 1940, as they hadn't come into existence until sometime in the 1960s.

UNIT was a bit like Torchwood, in that they were mandated to protect the world from alien invasion. Of course Torchwood tended to be somewhat less nice about it and more direct. UNIT probably wouldn't give an invading species a second chance, Torchwood wouldn't have given them a first, invading or peaceful.

Also, Torchwood was more concerned with Great Britain than the world, even though they did have treaty access with a number of countries in the 1940's, including the US.

Xander wondered if they still did or if UNIT covered that end of things now.

********

When the presenters arrived they both turned out to be Majors, which Xander thought was fairly impressive, although Colonels might have been more so. The army Major turned out to be involved with something called 'The Initiative' which was a group that didn't ping on Xander's radar. UNIT was exactly as his memories advertised. Both of them gave a good lecture about the student's opportunities for being funded for college and the career opportunities available with their respective branches. They were less skilled when they attempted to explain what they did, without actually explaining what they did.

Xander at least was one up on them, because he knew what the UNIT guy wasn't saying. The Initiative guy came off a little different and Xander wondered if they didn't maybe deal with things like the Watcher's Council did. It would make sense, since the Watcher's, like Torchwood, were based in England and other countries couldn't be completely blind to some of the things that went bump in the night.

And once you knew about them, you either hid your head under the blankets, or you went out and you did something about them.

It looked like the Initiative might be that something, at least as far as the US was concerned. Unfortunately there was something about them that reminded him just a little too much of Torchwood, especially Torchwood London. Still, he'd probably never know, as any offer from the two of them would be contingent on his final grades and especially on his SAT's and he'd probably be lucky to break 700, combined, on those.

********

Xander arrived back at the library in time to find out that the thing stolen the night before was some kind of decoder ring, (although in this case it was more of a decoder cross). The cross could be used to decipher several mystical text, one of which happened to have been stolen, by vampires, from Giles a few weeks before. Always heartening to find out that the bad guys had long term plans.

Of course this information left all of them, except Buffy, in research mode. The only chance they had of figuring out what the bad guys were up to was to find out what was in the book they had stolen, and that meant finding references to it in other books.

Buffy managed to slide on the research, and given the interference Willow was running Xander suspected that she had a hot date, probably with Angel.

At one time Xander was certain that he would be more upset with the thought, but it was becoming harder and harder to comfortably hate Angel for being a vampire. He could hate most vampires for being wanton killers, but Angel wasn't in that category and being prejudiced against a good man for his species was so against everything that Jack believed in that Xander found it hard to do the same.

That and it tended to highlight just how jealous he was, or at least had been of Angel. He would always love Buffy, but he now understood just how much those two were connected. He also understood how hard a relationship between two people could be when one didn't age. The two of them needed to grab whatever happiness they could, while they could.

And it didn't hurt that he thought Angel was hot and if the two of them ever wanted to consider a threesome, he'd be there.

And wow, he'd just found out that he could make Giles and Willow jump by unexpectedly thumping his head against the table top in an attempt to banish that last thought right out of his head.

********

A long night of research netted them exactly bupkiss and the next morning dawned to the news that Buffy and Angel had been attacked by something that had been bad enough to leave Buffy limping and Angel apparently freaking out.

Giles joined him in the freaking out part when he realized her attacker had been a Tarakan assassin. While Xander was all for the be prepared bit, he thought Giles over sold the danger and Buffy taking off like she had wasn't going to help keep her safe either.

After another night of research, with breaks to try and get hold of Buffy, Xander gladly took Giles' order to get Cordy to drive him over to Buffy's house to look for her.

********

Cordelia really was a sight for tired eyes, even when she'd obviously been dragged out of bed to play taxi.

"Thanks." Xander said, getting into the car.

Cordelia just made a sort of indefinable sound, like it was far too early to manage actual speech.

Xander smiled a little at her, he'd have to see about pouring some coffee into her once they'd checked Buffy's house and hopefully found her.

"Cordelia, when we get to Buffy's place let me out and circle the block until I'm back out."

She glanced over at him like he was nuts.

"Seriously, there's some pretty bad people after Buffy at the moment, and I'd rather you were in your car and able to get away rather than stuck in the middle of it."

"Jeez, doofus, when did you start doing chivalry where I was concerned?"

Xander blinked at the question. "Ah, I don't know."

Cordelia snorted, in a very lady like manner. "Yeah, well, it doesn't matter, because I am not staying in the car, moving or otherwise. This town already has a monopoly on every horror movie cliché in the book, so I'm not going to help it along by being the damsel who stays in car only to get killed by the axe murderer."

"Fair enough."

********

Watching Cordelia climb in through a window at Buffy's house was way more fun than it should have been, and Xander had to refrain from giving her a helping hand in just the right place. He left her downstairs, still grumbling slightly about the early morning as he headed upstairs to look for Buffy, although the fact that she hadn't already reacted to them breaking in was hopefully just a sign that she wasn't here and had found someplace safer to spend the night.

Xander checked each room, under each bed and in each closet, but no Buffy. He was just heading back down stairs when he realized that Cordelia was talking with someone. It didn't sound like the police, so hopefully their window entrance hadn't been noticed. And if it was a neighbour, maybe they had seen something useful.

Xander, however, had a definite sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach when he saw the guy and it wasn't because of the wigged out expression on Cordy's face.

It was because Jack's memories knew exactly what he was.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

_It is known that there is an infinite number of worlds, but that not every one is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so if every planet in the Universe has a population of zero then the entire population of the Universe must also be zero, and any people you may actually meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination._

_**~Douglas Adams, The Original Hitchhiker Radio Script**_

Cordelia moved up to Xander as he arrived at the foot of the stairs.

"Xander..." Cordelia started.

Xander cut her off with a quick, "Yeah, I get it." A sideways and backwards manoeuvre put her behind him and on the first tread of the staircase.

"Can we help you?" Xander asked the 'man' who was still just standing there, somehow terrifying looking despite the blankly affable look on his face.

"Are there any more ladies in the house?"

He really needed to work on his delivery. Even without knowing what he did know, Xander suspected that he would have doubted the salesman's humanity soon as he had opened his mouth.

"Yeah," Xander said, backing up one of the steps and causing Cordy to go up another one as well. "I think she's in the kitchen though."

As soon as the assassin looked towards the kitchen Xander shoved Cordelia up the stairs with a half whispered, "Run."

Cordelia ran.

Xander followed and behind him, he heard a barely definable sound as the faux make-up salesman took offence at their sudden departure and started to follow. Xander pelted up the stairs to find Cordelia standing in the upstairs hallway, freaking out. He pushed her into Buffy's room and just barely managed to shut the door before the mass of walking worms that had been an assassin masquerading as a make-up salesman caught up to them. He blessed Buffy for having a lock on her door as he used it. Not that he expected it to hold for more than a moment, but he would take what he could get.

"What, what, what," Cordelia stamped her foot down, apparently using the motion as an external way to clamp down on her fear. "What was that?"

"No time to explain." Xander moved across the room and opened Buffy's window.

"Come on." He said, gesturing at Cordelia to go through.

"What is it with you and windows?" Cordelia asked, but she moved as she did and was halfway through it before she had even finished the sentence. Something heavy slammed up against Buffy's door and Xander quickly followed her out, closing the window behind him once he was out on the roof.

"Great," Cordelia said, looking around. "What are we supposed to do now, call for help?"

Xander gestured off to the side, "Tree."

Cordelia looked over at the oak growing beside the house.

"You have got to be kidding me."

"Buffy does it all the time, how do you think she manages to be a Slayer without her mother knowing?"

"Buffy, in case you haven't noticed, has superpowers. If I try that I'll break my neck."

"Cordelia, you're a cheerleader, and as a purveyor of all things cheerleader, I know exactly how athletic you are."

"Now that's just creepy."

Xander smiled. "I can go first and spot you if you like."

"Forget it; it would just make me feel like you're looking up my skirt, even though I'm not wearing one at the moment." Cordelia latched on to a tree limb and carefully started to climb down. Xander followed, keeping an eye on her as they went. When she neared the ground Xander returned his attention to the roof, expecting to see the assassin standing on it and preparing to climb down after them.

But the roof was bare.

Cordelia's sudden muffled scream had him dropping the last few feet to land in a slight crouch in front of the assassin, who was once again in human form, as he held Cordelia in a tight grip.

"Let her go."

The 'man' shook his head. "Where is the Slayer?" Xander let out a breath, he was about to attempt something, and he was not at all sure he could pull it off.

"I don't know where the Slayer is."

The man tightened his grip on Cordelia.

"But I do know what you are…"

********

Cordelia blinked as Xander said something that sounded like a gravel truck trying to perform show tunes on a kazoo. The thing holding her screeched, making a noise that sounded like denial, and then it dissolved, turning into a rain of worms that covered her back.

She screamed and attempted brush them away, desperate enough to get them off that she didn't protest when Xander pulled her away from the bulk of the worm pile and ran his hands over her body to slough off the remaining crawlers. He continued to flick the things off her as he pushed her towards her car. Yanking open the passenger side door he practically threw her into the vehicle and then shoved her over until she was in the driver's seat. She fumbled in her pocket for her keys, taking precious seconds to slot the right one into the ignition.

She started the car and looked up, screaming again when she found worm guy, half reformed, standing in front of it.

Xander reached over and slipped the car into drive. "Hit the gas!" Cordelia stomped down on the pedal and slammed into the assassin. The guy looked startled for a moment before he dissolved completely into worms again, dropping to the ground between the tires of the car. If Cordelia hadn't had quite enough, thank you very much, she would have put the car into reverse and made sure that when she backed up that this time he would not have been between the tires. However, her flight or fight was on definite flight and she pealed away from Buffy's place, barely even slowing down, never mind coming to a full stop, until they were back at the library.

********

Cordelia and Xander sat in the car for a few moments and just breathed. Cordy's hands were so tight on the steering wheel that the muscles in her arms were actually shaking and it was with some effort that she managed to relax enough to peel them away.

"Okay, what gives?"

Xander frowned at her. "How do you mean?

Cordelia glared at him and he suddenly realized that her expression was almost as powerful a weapon as Willow's resolve face.

"Since when do you do magic?"

Xander's mouth dropped open, but no sound was coming out so he closed it. He opened it once more and tried again, "I didn't do any magic, no magic here," he said, holding up his hands to imply he was weapon less as well as magic less.

"Then what did you say to that... that thing that caused it to spaz out? And on top of that, howdid you say it?"

"Uh, I read it in a book?" Oooh, Cordelia glare has higher settings, hide now.

"Xander." And she really shouldn't grit her teeth so hard when she talked, she'd damage her dental work.

Xander thumped his head against the seat's headrest. For weeks now he'd felt an overpowering urge to tell someone something about what was going on with him, even if it was only a little bit of that something.

He just never thought that someone would be Cordelia.

"Do you remember Halloween?"

Cordelia just stared at him for a moment, and then snorted. "Would it be possible to forget it?"

"You'd be surprised."

"Are you saying…?"

Xander shook one of his hands in a 'no, no, stop there' sort of motion. "No, I still remember it. Never mind that." Xander paused a moment to gather his thoughts. "Do you remember who I went as?"

"Yeah, a British pilot who was somehow American."

"American volunteer." Xander replied. The clarification pretty much ingrained from the many times that Jack had explained his situation with those two words.

"Whatever. What does Halloween have to do with what just happened?"

"I think the Captain, Captain Harkness; I think he was a real person. Ethan used a real RAF uniform for the costume and I think that that night I became the person who originally owned. I also suspect that, because he was a real person, that that's probably the reason why I still have all of his memories."

Cordelia looked shocked for a moment, and then dismissed the expression with a shake of her head.

"Okay, but what does that have to do with what just happened?"

"I'm getting there." Xander came close to snapping that line out and he took a deep breath in an attempt to calm down. "Sorry, it's just... Sorry."

"Okay." Cordelia wasn't sure if she should be insulted by Xander's loss of temper, or surprised that he actually apologized, to her, for it. Then she had to wonder just how much of Xander's recent, less antagonistic attitude towards her was because of him having another man's memories in his head.

"Before the war Captain Harkness worked for some sort of super secret British organization that looked into and dealt with weird things, sort of like the Watchers, but they actually had to do their own dirty work."

Cordelia just nodded that she understood.

"The Captain had a run in with several of those worm people during the course of his job." Okay, so he'd actually had problems with them while he was a Time Agent and not when he was with Torchwood, but that still meant it was during the course of his job.

"Ewww, there's more of them?"

Now it was Xander's turn to give her a look for the interruption.

"Sorry."

"The worm people are a collective of the insects and when they bind together in large enough groups they are more intelligent and can shape shift to look like pretty much whatever they'd like to. However, more intelligent doesn't mean really smart. When they shape shift to look like a human, they tend to look like the first human that the species as a whole ever met."

"The first guy they ever met was a make-up salesman?"

Xander gave a bark of laughter. "Actually, he was a merchant, so you aren't far off."

"So what was that thing that you said?"

"It's the name of their species; they don't like to hear it."

"Why, because names have power?"

Xander laughed again. "No, because they're vain about their ability to shape shift. They have what amounts to a temper tantrum when someone sees behind the disguise and knows what they are." Xander gave his head a little shake. "Thankfully he still got upset even though he'd already let us see what he was made of. He probably didn't expect us to

'know' what he was."

"That was a temper tantrum?"

"Yep."

Cordelia thumped her head against the top of the steering wheel.

"Great."

"Well at least it worked, that time."

"It's a one time deal huh?"

"Pretty much. It just wouldn't be much of a shock to him a second time if we let him know what we know when he already knows what we know, you know?"

Cordelia groaned again and gave her head another thump against the steering wheel.

********

'Damn,' Xander thought as he followed Cordelia down the school hallway, 'She could actually be good at this. Sure, there was some freakage, but get her a little training and some seasoning and she would make one hell of a field agent.'

Xander blinked and shook his head. That was waaaaay to Jack, but at least this time it wasn't sexual. He looked over at Cordy, who every now and then slid her hands over her body, looking for more worms.

Okay, so it mostly wasn't sexual.

He peeled his eyes away from her and pushed open the door to the library. Buffy, thankfully, was back, fresh from her own adventures with assassins, one that from the look of the hallways had involved the entire school. A second slayer standing in the middle of the library was almost as big a surprise as his recent personal revelation about Cordelia.

Xander wasn't sure what to think of Kendra. She was a beautiful, powerful, competent slayer who appeared to be subservient to men. It was rather....disturbing. Sort of like a Stepford Slayer.

Then of course Giles announced that he'd figured out what was in the book that had been stolen, and now it was a race against time to find Spike and stop him before he could kill Angel and use his death as a way to heal Drusilla, who, according to records was a worse danger than the bleached one had even considered being.

Xander looked at the calendar over the checkout desk, yep, it was Tuesday. He was beginning to agree with that guy Jack had met once about Tuesdays, it was difficult to get the hang of them, especially when they kept trying to kill you.

********

Giles had given him and Cordelia a sort of demon mug book to look through, but they weren't having any luck finding either the bug guy or the police woman. Xander wasn't surprised about the bug guy, as he was actually an alien or rather a collection of alien bugs. Of course he did notice a couple of alien species in the mug book, but then you really couldn't expect medieval scholars to know the difference.

By the time they'd given up on the book they were looking at Giles had found them another one to search through that had a section that dealt with assassins from the Order of Taraka. Still no police woman, but worm guy was in there. The book also had advice on how to kill him, something that Xander already knew, but now at least he wouldn't have to explain how he knew it.

********

While Buffy and Kendra planned out how to work a sting on Willy the snitch, Xander relinquished the book back to Giles so the watcher could do some cross referencing. He then went and sat on the steps to the stacks and just spent a few minutes watching Giles and Willow research.

Cordy walked over and sat down beside him. She didn't say anything for so long that Xander had just started to relax again when she finally spoke.

"Is he why you've kind of been nicer to me lately?"

"What?"

"Come on Xander, you hate me, but lately you haven't even bothered to insult me, not even sarcastically. You've even been polite, and that isn't something I thought I'd ever see.

Xander smiled a little wistfully. "It's really strange, seeing yourself from someone else's perspective. It's even stranger seeing High School from the point of view of someone older, a lot older."

Xander turned and looked her in the eyes. "I know now that a lot of what I don't like about you is a camouflage that you feel you need to wear, and the rest is just teenager stuff that you and hopefully I will grow out of. So to answer your question, yes, I guess he is the reason I've been nicer. Of course, you've also earned it, because you really aren't the girl I thought you were which is kind of nice to find out. I think eventually I'd have gotten my head out of my ass and noticed that on my own."

Cordelia looked away. "Okay then." They sat there for a few more moments. "I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but I like the new you."

Xander winced, but nodded.

"But even if you've got a new perspective, you're still the same doofus, you know?"

Xander smiled then, his heart suddenly lighter. "I try my best."

********

He and Cordelia spent the rest of the time waiting for the go ahead from Buffy and Kendra by readying weapons and coming up with a plan to fight worm guy. A plan that required a few supplies that the art class could provide. Which is why Xander found himself attempting to manually rewire the electronic lock on the supply cupboards while Cordelia kept watch.

Sometimes he really wished he had Jack's wrist strap.

Still, the locks weren't anything special and Xander didn't have much trouble getting them open, although Jack probably could have done it in half the time even without the wrist strap. Xander liberated the supplies they needed, put the lock back together and joined Cordelia outside the art room. By the time they got back to the library, Buffy and Kendra were set to go and started towards Willy's on foot. The rest of them piled into Giles' car, which was a very tight fit, but would get them where they had to be.

Eventually they ended up following Kendra, who was following Buffy and Willy. This brought all of them to their ultimate destination, which in this instance was an old church.

And as usual, they got there just in the nick of time.

********

The art class wasn't going to be able to glue anything together for some time. Cordelia and he had used the supplies they'd 'borrowed' and with a few well placed insults that felt to Xander like they'd almost ripped his throat out, managed to trick worm guy into disassembling to get them. Like a roach motel only on a larger size, he managed to get in under the door they were hiding behind, but he didn't get out. Thankfully the glue they used had come in paint can size containers, so it had been the work of moments to prepare the trap.

The two of them stomped on the assassin's component parts until he was very, very dead. When they came out of the room it was in time to watch Kendra finish whaling on the police woman assassin before Buffy buried Spike and Drusilla under the collapsing organ loft. As one they helped the weakened Angel out of the building, letting it burn as a fire Spike had accidentally set earlier spread to engulf the old church.

********

The next day Willow and an injured Oz discussed animal crackers and smiles. Kendra and Buffy said their goodbyes before the other Slayer headed back home and Xander, who had finally decided to at least partially address his problem, went to talk to Giles.

The Watcher was having a cup of tea in his back office, and Xander stood in the doorway to it, leaning against the jam.

"Hey, G-man."

"Xander, can I help you?"

"Yeah, I was wondering," he paused as Giles took a sip of his tea and waited until the man had swallowed. "If you've ever heard of the Torchwood Institute?"

What did you know; it was possible to do a spit take without any liquids in your mouth.

"I'll take your reaction as a yes."

"Xander, where did you hear about... Torchwood?"

Xander sighed. "In a nutshell, Halloween."

Giles looked confused.

"Ethan used a real RAF uniform for the costume I wore. The Captain was a real person. A real person who worked for Torchwood before the war and for some reason I still have all of his memories. Everything about his life that he remembered, I remember.

"Xander, why didn't you..."

"I didn't say anything about it earlier because, lets face it, we've had more important things to worry about and I hoped that the memories would just fade away like they seemed to do for Buffy."

"But they haven't?"

Xander shook his head. "No.... Can you… get him out of my head?"

"I... I don't know. I would have to look over the ritual Ethan performed, see how it worked before I'd even have any idea."

"Will you?"

"The memories, are they really bad?"

"They're not good. Torchwood, Torchwood isn't a nice place Giles, and some of his childhood and his time in the army... " Xander just shook his head, sincerely unable to describe it.

"I'll see what I can do."

"Thank you."

********

Night had long ago inked out the blue of the day's sky when a pile of debris in a burned out building moved, moments before a pale, sooty hand broke its way free. Another equally pale hand grasped the sooty one and pulled, dragging a burned and injured Spike out of the detritus.

Drusilla, alive and so strong the power seemed to flow off of her, reached down and wiped some of the ash off of Spikes face. He moaned slightly and she smiled.

"Don't worry, dear heart. I'll see that you get strong again," she lifted him into her arms, almost giddy with her re-found strength, "like me."

And she smiled again, the look on her face terrifying as madness crept out and wed itself tightly to the strength it had missed so very, very much.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Torchwood belong to their perspective owners; I am not one of them. I'm just borrowing them for entertainment purposes and no money shall be made from this entertainment.

Author's note: Sorry it's been so long. I've been trying to finish other things, but I though it was about time I put something out on this story.

Blue Coats and Guarding the Rifts

by Colleen

Chapter 4

_And remember, no matter where you go, there you are. _

_**~Confucius**_

A few weeks of quiet followed the fight at the church. Well, quiet for the Hellmouth anyway. Eventually the weird started to find them again. Buffy went through hell believing she'd killed her mother's boyfriend. When it turned out that he was an android turned serial killer who was after her mother, it put things in a different perspective.

She didn't have any problem killing him the second time.

Xander salvaged a few of Ted's parts after, managing to get to the body before Willow. Some of the android's systems were simply the work of a genius, but a couple of them were augmented with alien tech, and Xander shuddered to think of what Willow could do with those if she'd ever gotten her hands on them.

A few more weeks of relative quiet followed the Ted incident. Then most of the school was taken over by the things that hatched from the eggs for the Sex Ed class' responsibility experiment. Xander felt a little stupid about that one. Even if the eggs were demonic in nature, it wasn't like Jack hadn't seen something similar attempted with alien eggs at a farm during the 1930's.

During the quiet times Giles had tracked down what he could of Ethan's Halloween prank. Xander helped to fetch and carry and research where he could, but so far Giles didn't even know why Xander still remembered what he did, much less how to help him get rid of it.

Then all hell broke loose.

Spike and Drusilla turned out to still be alive, so to speak, and assembling a demon called the Judge. A demon that had the power to burn all the good out of a person. An attack that only the most evil of creatures could survive. To add spice to an already unpalatable meal, Jenny Calendar turned out to be a member of the gypsy tribe that originally cursed Angel with a soul and was living in Sunnydale to keep watch over him.

Sadly, before they found out about Miss Calendar, Buffy and Angel took their relationship to the next level, giving Angel a moment of true happiness. This, stupidly enough, turned out to be the one thing that could break the soul curse. Angel's soul, or at least what made him, him, was gone and Angelus was back in the driver's seat.

While Buffy was dealing with that emotionally, Xander had an idea for taking down the Judge. All the books said that no weapon forged could kill him and that it had taken an army to subdue and dismember him. However, weapons had come a long way in the last six hundred years.

What they needed was a really big gun.

It was a long shot, but with help from Willow Xander managed to hack into UNIT. He might have been able to do it himself, however computers were only a little easier for him to understand now. Jack had been a moderately descent hacker, but he was best on the easier to use models of the 51st century. Thankfully he had at least studied the computers of the late 20th century and all of the 21st, since those were both time periods that a Time Agent would be most in need of tweaking.

Once they were in Xander managed to distract Willow away from the computer. He then requested Emergency Torchwood access and used Jack's Torchwood access codes to request a rocket launcher from the local army base.

Yep, a really big gun. Not as good as some of Jack's really big guns, but it would do.

Using Jack's access codes had been a long shot and a potentially dangerous one at that, but Torchwood tended to be old fashioned enough that they didn't change things unless they had to. Also, he knew that Jack had stopped varying his security codes sometime during the First World War. He was already over a hundred years old in 1940 and that was a long time to keep coming up with and remembering new codes.

Anyway, it actually worked.

Xander had them deliver the weapon to the unused modular classroom that was still sitting out back from the job fair. He'd been surprised that the thing was still there and when he picked the lock to get in and retrieve the launcher, he noticed was still set up with the boardroom table and chairs.

Curious, but he didn't have time for curious, so he grabbed the weapon, got it to Buffy, showed her how to use it (it came with a manual so it wasn't that difficult) and then they went and blew that blue monstrosity into itty bitty little pieces, which they then had to collect and keep separate, just in case.

The only down side was that Angelus and Drusilla got away, and they and Spike were still out there somewhere. Worse of course, was that Angelus would be trying his best to make Buffy's life a living hell.

Something he'd probably do by attempting to kill all of her friends and family first.

* * *

After the Judge incident Xander had two days of nerve wracking peace. Nerve wracking, because he could just feel that something was going to happen. So it was almost a relief when, on the second night, on his way home from a late night research binge at the school library, two men wearing red berets hopped out of a black van, grabbed him, stuck a bag over his head, tossed him into the van and drove off with him.

It looked like he hadn't managed to pull off hacking into UNIT as well as he'd hoped. There was a very good chance he'd be spending the next twenty years in a four by six cell with little or no amenities. He just hoped they hadn't discovered Willow's involvement in the hack as well.

The ride was really short, which was a surprise. He'd expected that they'd take him to the local army base at least. They handcuffed him during the trip. Once they arrived they used the chain to drag him out of the van and into a building. It wasn't until then that they did a pat down on him, something he thought would have been smarter to do in the van, but hey, kidnappers choice. They quickly found his wallet, keys, and cross, along with the two stakes he always carried with him. After dropping him into a chair they undid the cuffs just long enough to re-cuff one of his wrists to one of the chair's arms.

The men didn't speak, but he heard the click of wood and the clink of metal as the stakes and the rest of his possessions were passed along to someone else in the room. He also got the impression that there was a certain amount of saluting going on with whoever was there. He listened to the men leave and a couple of sweaty minutes passed before a hand grabbed hold of the sack over his head, and pulled it away, before dropping it onto the table in front of him.

Xander blinked for a few moments, immediately recognizing where he was. The chairs and the boardroom table were unmistakable and the short trip here could only mean that this module was still sitting behind the school. The man who'd pulled the bag off of his head sat down in the chair closest to him, just around the table's rounded corner. Xander turned to him, feeling his breath seize in his chest as he looked at a face that he, from time to time, expected to see in his own mirror. Black hair, blue eyes and face that, if it had been smiling, which it wasn't, would have had dimples.

"I'm Captain Jack Harkness, but then, you probably already knew that."

Oh damn, was he ever screwed.

* * *

Jack had let the kid stew for a couple of minutes while he looked over the wallet, keys and jewellery, although he spent over half of those minutes frowning at the two stakes. He arranged all of it on the table, next to where he was planning to sit in case he needed to refer to any of it during the upcoming conversation. Then he pulled the bag off of the kid's head and sat down to start the interrogation.

Jack was a little surprised by the kid in front of him. He had been expecting either an obvious computer nerd, or a paramilitary hard case, and given that UNIT had invited him to one of their early recruitment talks, he'd been betting on paramilitary.

The kid was fit, definitely cute, though way to young for Jack to consider seriously hitting on, and had a sort of goofy air to him. He did look like someone who might have pulled off stealing a rocket launcher as a practical joke, but he didn't look like someone who would have used it in a crowded mall. Jack looked down at the file folders he'd placed on the table earlier. The police in this town were crap, but despite how muddled the reports were all of them mentioned the rocket launcher in question being used by a young, unidentified woman and not the young man in front of him, so he might be working with a group.

Still, the rocket launcher wasn't really why he was here. How the kid had gotten the rocket launcher, or rather how the kid had hacked into UNIT and how he knew Jack's access codes were.

The kid was looking around the room, although he obviously knew where he was.

"CCTV?" He asked.

"Yep, motion activated, came on when you entered to collect the launcher, its how we tracked you down." The kid was smarter than he looked, and way too calm. Normally Jack would think it was because he just didn't realize how much trouble he was in, but he didn't think that was it.

"Are the cameras running now?"

Jack nodded.

"Any way you could turn them off?"

Jack smirked at him. "Why, are you going to make inappropriate offers?"

The kid smirked back and Jack felt an odd wave of deja vu when he looked at the boy.

"No, but ask me again later." Then the boy, Alexander, got one of those I can't believe I just said that looks on his face and groaned.

"So, Alexander Harris, want to tell me how you got hold of classified information, more specifically, my classified information?"

"No, I don't really want to tell you, but I will. After you turn off the cameras and sound."

"Now why would I do that?"

The kid looked at him and Jack could suddenly see what might have prompted UNIT to take the first steps towards recruiting him. There was a solid shaft of steel running through him that Jack suspected was kept hidden a lot of the time.

He could relate.

"I think you should do that because we need to talk and because I know things about you that I don't think you want other people knowing about you."

"Like what?" Jack asked as he leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms.

The kid looked down at the table, addressing it instead of Jack. "I know your real name, I know where you were born, and I know when you were born." He looked up at Jack. "Want me to go on?"

Jack's eyes narrowed in a frown as he considered just what the kid might know. Given the security codes, well… He flicked open his wrist strap, noticing that the kid looked at it not with curiosity, but with an expression that was almost longing. A little fiddling and he used it to shut down the cameras and mikes in the room.

"Okay, they're off."

Alexander nodded and leaned back in his seat before he reeled off Jack's real name, the place he was born, and the date. A date that was three thousand years in the future.

"Hope you really did turn them off."

"How the hell do you know that?"

"Do you know much about Sunnydale?"

Jack blinked at the sudden shift in the conversation. "No, and you're here to answer my questions, I'm not here to answer yours."

The kid's lips quirked in a half smile. "Believe me, I'm trying to."

Jack narrowed his eyes, staring at him for a moment, and then gestured to Xander to continue.

"Sunnydale is a bit like Cardiff, in that it was built on a weak spot."

Jack came to full attention. "There's a rift in time and space running through the town?"

"No, there's a gateway to another dimension and the town was built over it."

"Another dimension?"

"Yeah... You know the old ones, like the fairies?" Jack jerked when Xander mentioned them. "The ones that are part of this world, but came before us and are in some ways more alien than any alien?"

"Yes."

"Most of them, the even scarier ones, left and traveled to a new place, a new dimension and Sunnydale sits on one of the ways through to that dimension. A dimension, I might add, that any sane person, if they were ever to experience it, would equate with Hell."

"You're saying the town is built on a gateway... to Hell?" Jack asked his voice disbelieving.

"Yep, home sweet Hellmouth, that's us."

"And things come through it?" Jack asked, assuming that it acted like the rift he knew.

"Not generally, thank goodness, but the old ones left parts of themselves behind. Either by mating with humans, or by mixing their essences with them in other ways. A lot of these 'children' are what we call demons and vampires and whatnot and they tend to be drawn to the Hellmouth."

"Demons and vampires?" Jack's voice was very disbelieving now.

"Yeah well, a demon is just one of the descendents of the old ones who got stuck here instead of travelling to this other dimension. A vampire is just a dead body that's been prepared by another vampire so that it can be used by, well probably by a low level old one who's either trapped here, or wants out of 'Hell', I'm not really sure. Anyway, the person is dead, and the thing that takes over just uses the person's memories and personality as a template."

"Okay, I mean, I admit, I've seen similar things with aliens and other dimensional travelers. However, this still isn't telling me how you know so much about me."

Xander blew out a small breath of relieved air. He'd always known that he'd have to explain the Hellmouth as scientifically as possible to Jack if he'd ever met him. It was how he'd managed to reconcile the weirdness that is Sunnydale with the Jack parts of himself.

Xander looked down at the table top again. "Last Halloween a Chaos Mage," he looked back up at Jack, whose eyebrows had climbed up into his hair. Nope, wrong way to explain it. "Which is just a fancy name for a person with an inborn ability to manipulate ambient energy." Not really a good description, but at least Jack looked less disbelieving. "Anyway, he came to town, set up a costume shop, sold a lot of costumes, and on Halloween night he did something that changed everyone who was wearing one of his costumes, into their costumes, both physically and mentally."

There was a look of dawning horror and Jack's face.

"My best friend was suddenly a ghost, another friend, who is one of the strongest women I know, became a panicking, fainting noble woman and I, I became you."

"What? How?"

"I went as an RAF pilot from WWII. I don't know where Ethan Rayne, that was the mages name, I don't know where he got the uniform and great coat from, but after Halloween I recognized it as the ones I, I mean you, left with Weeks and Sons back in September 1940."

"They went down in the Blitz."

Xander just nodded.

"So, you have my memories."

Xander nodded again. "Everything you remember up until September 1940 when you dropped the uniform off for repair."

Jack thought for a moment. "What about everyone else who became their costumes, do they still have the memories from them?"

Xander shook his head. "As far as I can tell, any memories that came with the costumes faded away a few days later." Xander shrugged. "Guess I'm just lucky. Oh, and by the way, did you have to be Omni-sexual? I was very, very happily straight and now..."

Jack just smirked for a moment, before the seriousness of the situation wiped the look from his face.

"What did you do with the rocket launcher?"

The question obviously made the kid uncomfortable, but he answered anyway. "We needed it to take down this... If I say demon, are you going to freak?"

Jack winced slightly. "How about we call them what they are, dimensional travellers?"

"Okay, we used it to take down this dimensional traveller, who could burn people alive just by looking at them."

"Why at a mall?"

"Because that was where the largest group of people would be gathered that night."

"He'd have killed them all?"

"Yep."

"And the girl who used it?"

Xander shook his head. "Nope, not going to talk about that, other than to say that she doesn't know anything about you."

Jack narrowed his eyes at Xander. "Okay, I'll accept that, heck; I'll even fix your little problem with UNIT being annoyed with you for hacking their system, if you'll do something for me."

"What?"

Jack held up a little white pill and Xander swallowed nervously.

"You know what this is?"

Xander nodded, "Retcon."

"You seem like a nice kid Alex, may I call you Alex?"

"Xander."

Jack nodded. "Okay, Xander. You seem like a nice kid, but I can't have someone running around with most of my life in their head. This pill will erase about four months of your life, which should take you back to before Halloween and wipe out everything you know about me as well."

Xander just stared at the pill in Jack's hand for a moment. "You know, I came close, a time or two, to sitting down and mixing up a batch of that stuff. I really wasn't sure I could take having you in my head."

Jack held the pill out to him.

Xander reached out with his free hand, and then hesitated. "Before I take that, there's one more thing I need to talk with you about. Then, if you still want me to take it, I will."

Jack narrowed his eyes further, but he set the pill down on the table and leaned back in his chair. "Fair enough, shoot."

Xander opened his mouth to talk, but he never got the chance.

* * *

A muffled scream, the thud of a body against the side of the modular school room/boardroom and the almost unbearably loud echoing sound of a sidearm discharging brought Jack up out of his chair. Xander stood as well, although awkwardly as he was still handcuffed to the arm of his chair. Jack pulled his own side arm, one that Xander recognized as a Webley, either it was the one that he remembered Jack using during the war, or it was one just like it.

There was silence outside and Jack threw Xander a look, to which he just shrugged. Jack was just starting to circle the other side of the table, when the door snapped open, its lock broken by a solid kick. Two vampires in game face walked in, dragging the bodies of the two UNIT soldiers who had grabbed Xander earlier.

They dropped the corpses the way one would a bag of trash. The two of them grinned toothily at Xander and Jack, before one of them turned to talk to someone who was still outside of the module.

"Look boss, more food, just like I told you."

"Then get the hell out of my way moron."

Xander stiffened when he heard the other voice and Jack jerked, a disbelieving and confused look on his face.

And Spike wheeled himself into the room.

"It can't be." Jack said, staring in shock at the wheelchair bound vampire.

"It isn't." Xander ground out. "Jack," he said, gaining the former Time Agents attention, "It isn't him."

Jack shook his head.

"Jack." Xander waited until the Captain was looking at him once more. "It never was him."

Jack let out a breath and nodded, then turned to look at Spike and the other two vampires.

"Well," Spike said, "Cryptic much?" He looked at one of his minions. "I don't know if I feel like cryptic tonight, it doesn't usually sit well." He breathed in, like he was scenting the air. "Though, I've got to admit, you two smell damn good. 'Course you might want to consider not wearing the same cologne when you go out. Makes you a little too matchy, matchy."

Xander and Jack looked at each other. Xander closed his eyes and mouthed the words, 'Pheromones, 51st century pheromones.'

Jack's eyes went wide and he might have said something, but Spike demanded his attention.

"Here now, no more of that cryptic crap." He looked from Jack to Xander, finally noticing that the younger man was handcuffed to a chair. "Oh, bit of fun and games is it?" He looked up at Xander properly and jerked slightly in his chair, before freezing.

"You're dead." He said, pointing a finger at Xander.

Xander shook his head no.

Spiked wheeled a little closer, like he needed a better look and Xander attempted to back away, but was hampered by the handcuff.

Spike squinted at him. "Yes, you are, you're dead. I ought to know, I was the one that killed you, well, sort of."

"Oh, I probably just have one of those faces, besides, you kill so many people, I'm sure it's difficult for you to keep them all straight."

"Yeah, it is, but the ones who roll themselves off of fifteen story rooftops just to avoid me, those ones tend to be difficult to forget."

Jack looked over at Xander for a moment, a weird combination of horror, compassion and comprehension on his face.

"Well," Spike clapped his hands together and rubbed them against each other, "the nights a wasting so I guess I'll take the big guy for now and I'll save you," he leered over at Xander, "for later."

The two minion vampires moved towards Jack, who raised his gun.

"Hate to break it to you buddy, but bullets don't kill us."

Jack fired two shots, each one dead centre of each minion's forehead. The two vampires fell to the floor, clutching their heads. "Maybe they don't kill you, but I'll bet they sting like hell."

Jack holstered the gun and then planted his hands on the table top and used them to half vault, half slide across the table so he was standing on the other side of Spike and in-between the writhing vamps on the floor.

"Bollocks."

Jack smiled and quickly fished the handcuff keys out of his pants pocket and slid them across the table to Xander, who just as quickly unlocked himself and moved over to collect his stakes from where they'd been sitting on the table.

He looked up to see the vampire on the floor behind Jack stand up suddenly and without even thinking about it he threw one of the stakes like a knife, towards the vampire.

The vampire, reached up and caught the stake with both hands, the point of it barely far enough into his body to draw blood. He looked down at it, apparently just as surprised as everyone else was at that moment, and then started to laugh.

Jack, who had turned to watch the stake's flight moved suddenly, shoving the stake the rest of the way in. As it finished its aborted path to the vampires heart the creature had time to go "erk" before it collapsed into dust.

Not having any experience with vampires, Jack didn't know to pull the stake back out before it disintegrated with the vampire, so he was once again weapon less except for his gun.

Spike meanwhile had been backing his chair away from the now free and armed Xander. He moved so far that he ran into the second vampire with his wheels. A second vampire who was just barely recovered from being shot in the head, and whose brain functions weren't exactly swift, even when he hadn't had lead shoved into his frontal lobe.

"Get up you idiot and get him."

The vampire staggered to his feet and without even looking, lunged at the young man carrying a stake. Xander barely had enough time to bring it into position. The force of the lunge helped to push the stake up under the minion's rib cage and into its heart.

Xander and the vampire were rather close at that moment, so close that Xander couldn't pull the stake back out, and another one turned to dust along with the demon.

Both he and Jack were covered in vamp dust and breathing hard when as one, they turned their attention to Spike.

"Aw, now really, this is hardly fair, two against one." Spike said, looking between the two of them.

"Yeah, well, I always do prefer to cheat." Jack said as he moved towards the infirm vampire.

Jack wasn't exactly sure what he was going to do with the vampire that looked so much like his ex-partner, and he never got the chance to figure it out. A dark burgundy blur moved from the door to him and he felt cool hands on his head before it was wrenched to the side, affectively breaking his neck and killing him instantaneously.

He didn't hear Xander call his name.

He didn't feel as the person who had killed him pulled his gun from its holster.

And he didn't see and hear as that person used the gun to put a bullet right through Xander Harris' head.

* * *

"Dru?" Spike asked as he looked up at his lady, who was standing next to him holding a smoking revolver and carrying a very pissed off expression on her face.

"Luv?"

She dropped the gun onto Jack's dead body and turned to look at Spike, her expression still very angry.

"I told you."

Spike sat back as far as he could in the chair, in a useless attempt to back away from her.

"Told me what luv?"

"I told you not to play with little Jack and here you are playing with him and big Jack."

"Honest Dru, it wasn't like that."

She slapped him on his shoulder, hard.

"Owww! What was that for?"

"I told you, they're wrong." She turned and looked at Jack and Xander's bodies. "They make me shudder, they do. I've never felt anything as wrong as they are." She walked around to the back of Spike's chair and started to wheel him out of the trailer.

"Yeah, well, they're dead. Whatever the wrongness is, it can't hurt you now."

She paused in the door way. "Oh, Spike." Drusilla shook her head like he was a small child who just didn't grasp grown up concepts. "Them being dead doesn't help, they're still wrong. They'll always be wrong. Wrong until even the stars can't sing anymore."

She started to push again and once they were outside she carefully closed the door to the module before continuing to push Spike towards home.

"I am very, very cross at you. I may even have to talk with Daddy about you."

Spike groaned. That would be just what he needed, Angelus finding out about him almost being taken down by a high school student and a male model.

It took the promise of a birthday party and two tea parties for her dolls before she'd agree not to tell.


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Torchwood belong to their perspective owners. I am not one of them. I'm just borrowing them for entertainment purposes and no money shall be made from this entertainment.

Author's note: Just a reminder about timelines. As the year is 1998, Jack is not currently in charge of Torchwood 3. That won't occur until January 1, 2000.

Blue Coats and Guarding the Rifts

By Colleen

Chapter 5

_There are three possible parts to a date, of which at least two must be offered: entertainment, food, and affection. It is customary to begin a series of dates with a great deal of entertainment, a moderate amount of food, and the merest suggestion of affection. As the amount of affection increases, the entertainment can be reduced proportionately. When the affection is the entertainment, we no longer call it dating. Under no circumstances can the food be omitted. _

_**~Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behaviour**_

Jack gasped as he came back to life and sat up, making a gargled pained sound as his neck finished slotting itself back into place and healed. He heard his gun fall to the floor as it slid from his body and he picked it up and holstered it automatically. He stood, grimacing as he took in the dead bodies of the two UNIT soldiers, and then he looked around for Xander.

He found him on the floor, a neat little bullet hole in the front of his head and a not so neat exit wound in the back of it. With a slightly pained sound, he reached across the table for his great coat, pulling it off the back of the chair he'd been sitting in. He also grabbed the kid's effects and the retcon tablet.

He sat down in the chair closest to the kid and stared at the little memory-altering pill for a good couple of minutes. He gave a sigh, and then fished into one of the coat's pockets, producing a bottle of the tablets. He opened it, put the loose pill back in and then closed the container before placing it back into the pocket.

Then he leaned back and waited.

* * *

It was five minutes later and Jack was just beginning to wonder if he was wrong when Xander's eyes snapped open and he gasped as he started to breathe again. Jack was at his side before he had time to take his next breath.

"What?" Xander looked around, confused.

"You died, and given what I heard before, that should probably be followed by, again."

Xander groaned and put his hands over his face.

"Come on." Jack slid his hands under Xander's shoulders and forced him to sit up. From there he hauled him up just far enough to drop him into one of the chairs.

"So, what do we do now?" Xander asked, as he wondered if Jack would end up pumping him full of retcon, or just dump him in one of Torchwoods lovely vacation cells.

"For now you sit there while I get hold of UNIT and clean up as much of this mess as I can."

Xander looked towards the bodies and winced, and then nodded and leaned back. Headshots, from what he remembered of Jack's memories, usually took a few minutes to stop hurting. Something he was looking forward to immensely.

Of course, once it stopped hurting he'd be able to think again. He was looking forward to that less.

* * *

It took most of the rest of the night before Jack and Xander were able to leave the scene. By then the bodies were gone and the vampire dust had been vacuumed up and bagged for analysis. Jack had straight up attributed the two soldier's deaths to dimensional travellers who rode around in dead bodies and stole the fluids of living bodies to keep them fresh. He also suggested they cremate the dead soldiers as quickly as possible, to insure that they didn't manage to use the newly dead bodies as vessels. That the travellers had been killed and their dusty remains were currently being collected appeared to be the only thing keeping the Commander leading this unit of UNIT from trying to rip Jack a new one for getting his men killed.

Unsurprisingly, Jack naturally refused to call them vampires. Watching from the sidelines, Xander though it was just as well. While UNIT did believe in aliens who were the bases of myths, they didn't actually hold any trust in myths being true on their own merit.

While the cleanup was underway, Jack got Xander's little hack into UNIT forgiven. UNIT didn't like the explanation that it was an emergency Torchwood matter, but they were willing to accept it for the moment as Jack assured them that the situation was resolved and had nothing to do with the current mess.

Now that UNIT was taken care of, Jack had to figure out what to do with Xander. A look at the kid verified that he was wondering the same thing himself.

Jack really didn't need much sleep and he suspected that Xander probably didn't either, but it had been a long night and both of them had died on top of it. Whatever decisions he would make about the teenager would have to wait until they both got some sleep. Jack poured Xander into his rented SUV and took him back to his hotel room. It was a tribute to Xander's tiredness that he didn't think to ask where they were going. At least, not until he found himself standing in the doorway of Jack's suite.

"What am I doing in your hotel room?"

"What would you like to be doing in my hotel room?"

Xander's mind whited out at the question and Jack gave him the smile that promised unimaginable bliss if he'd just give him the right answer. Xander's mouth opened and closed a couple of time before he just shook his head. Jack's smile became a little sad for a moment. Then he toned down its intensity from pure sex to just flirty.

"We still need to talk, but you're about to crash and to be perfectly frank, so am I. You can take the couch if you want, or you can join me in bed." He held up a hand to forestall Xander's refusal. "The bed is huge; you'll never even know I'm there."

"Yeah, right." However, even if he did doubt Jack's statement he still followed him into the bedroom. He was even tired enough to not even freak when the older man helped him strip down to his t-shirt and boxers and then tucked him in. He was asleep moments after his head hit the pillow. Jack was proven right, because he never even noticed when the older man lay down on the other side and drifted off to sleep himself.

* * *

Xander did notice Jack a few hours later when he woke up and found something warm and comfortable pressed up against his back. Freaking only slightly he lifted the covers for a look and was relieved to find he was still in the t-shirt and boxers. However, he was concerned to find Jack's arm wrapped around him, his hand flat on Xander's stomach, although it was at least above the t-shirt and not under it.

"Uh, Jack?"

A muffled sound came from behind him. The arm around his waist pulled him in tighter and a pair of lips pressed up against the back of his neck.

"Jack!" Oww, a panicked falsetto was not a good choice this early in the morning.

"Hmm? Oh, sorry." Jack let him go and Xander slid out of bed, firmly squashing down on the sudden sense of loss.

"I'm going to have a shower."

Jack opened his eyes just long enough to look at the clock and nodded. "I'll order up some," he looked at the clock again, "some brunch, so take your time."

Xander closed and locked the bathroom door and stripped, dropping the t-shirt and boxers on the floor. He made quick use of some of the other facilities in the room and then stepped into the shower with the water on as hot as he could stand it. He leaned his forehead against one of the walls and let it flow over him, completely losing track of time for a few minutes. With a sigh, he shook himself free of his Zen moment and quickly soaped up, shampooed and rinsed off.

When he stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around his waist, it only took him a few moments to realize that the shirt and boxers he'd left on the floor were gone. So much for the bathroom door's lock. He stepped back into the bedroom and looked to the chair where he'd left his clothes and found it was also empty.

"Jaaa...aaaack."

Jack smirked at the annoyance in Xander's voice and poked his head into the bedroom from the suite's living room. "Hey, I sent your clothes for laundering. There's a pair of sweats and a t-shirt on the bed you can wear. Oh, by the way, do you seriously wear those Hawaiian shirts, or did you lose a bet?"

Xander growled at him. Jack laughed, telling him to get dressed, and that the food should arrive any minute.

By the time Xander was dressed, which wasn't much more than a minute, their food had arrived. Xander practically hoovered down the omelette, home fries, toast, and orange juice and he only slowed down at the end to pick half-heartedly at the fruit plate that Jack had ordered to share.

"So, did any of the food and drink contain retcon?"

Jack took a sip of his coffee and set his cup down. "No."

"Are you going to retcon me?"

Jack chose a grape from the fruit plate. "Do you want me to?" He asked, before popping it into his mouth.

Xander thought about it, seriously. There were so many things that he didn't want to know that he now knew and so many things that he now felt that he didn't want to feel. However, even if he forgot all of that it wouldn't change what had happened to his body. Even assuming that the immortal bit was a fluke that would wear off eventually (ah yes, denial, not just a river in Egypt) he obviously had 51st century pheromones. This meant he was physically more like Jack than he'd thought. If he took the retcon he might still end up attracted to...everyone. Only without his current memories, he'd be even more lost about what was going on than he was now.

"No," he said finally, "I don't want you to."

Jack nodded. "Okay then."

Xander ate a piece of melon and wiped the juice off his fingers with a napkin. "Are you okay with me knowing so much about you?"

"No, but I'm less okay with leaving an immortal running around with even less knowledge of what's happening to him than I had. Especially given what's going on in this town."

Xander took a deep breath and nodded, letting it out with some relief, until he had another, scarier thought.

"So, what are you going to tell Torchwood about me?"

"Haven't a clue."

"Ah."

* * *

"Can I ask how you found out about the town being built on a dimensional gateway?"

Xander froze for a moment, then gave a shrug of his shoulders in a 'oh, what the hell' sort of gesture.

"Have you ever heard of the Watcher's Council?" Xander then picked up a napkin and wiped the moisture from his face. He really should have waited until Jack had swallowed that last sip of coffee before asking that.

"How do you know about them?" Jack asked, still choking slightly.

"There's a Watcher and a Slayer here, to guard the Hellmouth.

Well that at least made some sense to Jack, more sense than he'd ever expected the council to have.

"Jack, how do you know about them, you didn't as far up to as I remember?"

"Had a run in with them, sometime around... 1953, I think. The Slayer was cute, but her Watcher was thick beyond all reason. We were all hunting the same alien and any advice I gave them, he'd tell her to do the opposite."

"Ah, well the local one, he... He's a good man, someone you'd want at your back."

"You make it sound like he actually gets involved."

"He does."

Jack nodded. His eyes widened as he suddenly put a few facts together. "The girl, with the rocket launcher."

Xander nodded.

Okay, he could probably work with that.

* * *

A good con takes preparation, something Jack understood. A great con uses the truth to perpetuate the lie that is the con and it was harder to find the lie if you covered it in the truth. Moreover, when the truth was harder to believe in than the lie, that's when you were golden.

This of course was why aliens were the stuff of tabloids and not considered fact.

As far as Xander's con went, bending the truth just enough would probably work. For Torchwood, races that predated humans were rarely believed in, much less tolerated. Humans with unusual powers were either recruited or stomped on. Best then to simply ignore anything too strange that may have occurred on Halloween night and give a much more plausible report as to how Xander could have gotten Jack's access codes.

When his boss Alex called for his report, he had already worked out what he could say that wouldn't expose Xander's current situation to them. At least, not the important parts.

* * *

After Jack had pumped Xander for a few more facts about Halloween, he'd sent the teenager home in his freshly laundered clothing. Not expecting to be a free man with the way last night had started, Xander bolted as soon as he had the chance to. Of course, the freedom might be a temporary state, largely depending on Xander being able to sidestep the rest of Torchwood. It probably wouldn't be as easy to do as Jack going around UNIT for him was.

* * *

"Okay, let me see if I have this right." Alex said over the phone (and yes, the line was secure, in fact, it would be a couple of hundred years before anyone invented anything that would let them eavesdrop on Torchwood and by then, they would have upgraded). "In 1940 you, after dieing in an explosively unpleasant way, found your memory a little uncertain for a time. Because of that, you wrote down your access codes, to be held on to until you believed your memory to be secure. Then, because of the memory problems, you left the codes in the pocket of a uniform you took to your tailor and you never worried about getting the codes back, because your tailor's shop was reduced to rubble during the Blitz."

"Yep."

"Okay, so how does a teenager in California get hold of that paper?"

"From what I was able to piece together I think that my tailor did mail my uniform, along with anything I'd left in the pockets, back to Cardiff. I suspect that it then promptly fell into the rift and ended up fifty seven years in the future, in a costume shop here in Sunnydale."

"A costume shop?"

"Yeah, the kid, Xander, he rented and wore my old uniform on Halloween night as a costume. When they where having a little trouble here, he took a chance on the codes he found in the pocket and used them to get a rocket launcher."

"What little trouble?"

"Alien, hostile, of unknown origin, one that could burn a person alive just by looking at them."

Alex really did know a wide range of swear words, and he used them, generously.

"Alex, they took care of it."

"Did you retcon him?"

"No." Jack continued speaking before Alex could go into a second rant. "He's affiliated with the Watcher's Council Alex, and they, or at least the onsite Watcher, would probably take a dim view of it if I went monkeying around with his head."

"The Watchers, what the hell are those idiots doing there?"

"Sunnydale's built on a weak spot, a one plane dimensional rift, rather than a time and space rift. It tends to draw in strange things. They've been keeping an eye on it for a little over a year."

Alex snorted, "Well, that's more than they usually do. Okay, so what do you want to do about the kid?"

"Secrets aren't a problem; he's already keeping some doozies. He retuned the codes, and I've destroyed them. What he does know about Torchwood is second hand and out of date, I don't think the Watchers are much good at surveillance when it comes to other agencies." Wow, two true statements that sound like they could go together, but didn't.

"If he were older, I'd suggest we hire him or a least shunt him towards UNIT. As it is I'm thinking of keeping a loose eye on him, maybe snap him up in a few years. I also thought I'd keep in touch. That way if they come up against something the Council can't or won't help them with he might turn to me instead of bulldozing through UNIT's security again."

Alex was silent for a few minutes, while he thought about it. "Okay, but if this blows up, you're the one cleaning up the mess."

"Understood."

* * *

Xander snuck into his house and upstairs, before noisily coming back down. Since today was Saturday, he hoped that his parents would think that he hadn't gotten home until after they'd gone to bed, and that he was just getting up now.

The phone was ringing as he hit the main floor, and he heard his mother answer it as he entered the kitchen. She handed the phone over without a word and sat back down at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and a crossword puzzle.

Used to non-verbal Saturday and Sunday mornings, Xander just took the phone and said "Hello" into the mouthpiece.

"Xander!"

"Hey Will, what's up?"

"You are. Which, for a Saturday, is pretty amazing."

Xander had to chuckle a little at that. "Okay, so other than me, what else is up?"

"I was wondering, since Buffy's out doing the Birthday shopping thing with her mom today, if you wanted to hang out?"

"Hang out with my bestest bud, how can I say no to that?"

"Great, want to meet u..., uh, me at Double Meat?"

"Absolutely, see you in about 20?"

"Sure."

Xander hung up the phone and smiled a little. A nice relaxing day with Willow, just what the doctor ordered to shake the last of the night before out of his head.

* * *

When Xander got to the Double Meat Palace, he found Willow already there, sitting at a table and chatting with Oz.

"Hey Will," Xander frowned slightly, "Oz."

"Xander." Willow gestured to a seat, so he sat. "I uh... I asked Oz if he'd like to join us, I hope that's okay."

Him, Willow and Oz? Yep, his brain went there, so did parts of his body. He quickly sat down at the table.

"Hey," Willow said, standing suddenly, "I'll go get the food, my treat," and she took off before Xander could stop her, leaving him alone with Oz.

"Hey."

"Hey."

Xander looked over at Willow, who was standing in line for food and fidgeting nervously. With a small sigh he turned back to talk with Oz. "So, you and Willow?"

"Me and Willow what?"

"You're," he paused a moment, looking for the right word and felt his shoulders slump as he realized what it was, "you're dating."

Oz's lips quirked up in a slight smile. "Yeah, I think we are."

Xander nodded. "Good, good."

The silence lasted five seconds. "Just so you know, if you ever hurt her I'll kill you slow and feed your remains to whatever demon's convenient at the time."

Oz nodded. "Okay."

"Good."

Another five seconds. "Just so you know," Oz said, "if you ever hurt her I'll find a way to do you even worse."

Xander smiled at him and held out his hand, which Oz took and shook.

"Deal."

* * *

When Willow got back to the table with the food and found Xander and Oz chatting amicably (although Xander was doing most of the chatting). She wasn't sure if she should be happy that her oldest male friend and her potential boyfriend seemed to be getting along, or annoyed that her oldest male friend and her potential boyfriend seemed to be getting along.

Still, she sat down and parcelled out the food with a smile on her face and whatever Xander and Oz had been talking about shifted to movies and if they should go see one that afternoon.

Everything was going really well, and then Xander looked up at something and almost choked on a French fry. Willow followed his line of sight and blinked when she saw one of the most devastatingly handsome men she'd seen in a while (which was saying something in Southern California), standing next to their table.

The man smiled disarmingly at them and Willow was sure that every table in the place felt the sexual kick to the stomach that that look alone delivered.

"Jack." Xander's voice was strained, although that was probably from the French fry.

"Hey Xander, glad I found you, although I'm sorry I have to interrupt."

Xander waived off the apology and started to stand, but Jack stopped him with a raised hand.

"I just wanted to see if we could get together this evening and talk. I'll be heading back to Cardiff tomorrow morning and there are a few things we should go over before I leave."

"Uh, sure."

Jack waited expectantly.

"Oh, uh Jack, this is my best friend, Willow, and this is her... boyfriend Oz. Guys this is..."

"Jack Tyler," he said, reaching out to shake their hands as he did. "I'm a cousin of Xander's."

Willow frowned at him. "Really, 'cause, you know, he's never mentioned you."

Jack smiled again and Willow wondered if it was actually possible for a person's insides to melt.

"Not surprised about that, I've been living in the UK since before he was born. In fact, I'd bet you'd be able to count the amount of times we've seen each other on the fingers of one hand."

Xander made a slightly rude sound, but didn't say anything.

"Well, I'd better go," he turned to Xander. "I'll pick you up at your place? Around seven?"

Xander just nodded.

Jack looked them over again and smiled. "Well, it was nice to meet you, and may I say that I think you make a lovely threesome." Then he turned with a flourish, which Xander noticed looked odd without the coat, and was out the door before Willow and Oz's jaws managed to finish falling all the way open.

Xander just shook his head, picked up his drink, and took a sip. And here he'd been thankful that Jack hadn't worn his great coat into the restaurant, as he was sure Willow would have recognized the mate to the one Xander had worn on Halloween.

He should have know, if Jack couldn't stir things up one way, he'd do it another.

"He..." Which was as far as Willow got on her first try to say something after she'd gotten her mouth to close.

"He said..." Second try, two words, which were more than Xander had expected her to get.

"He said threesome!" She turned to look at Xander, who winced slightly when he noticed that most of the restaurant had heard her as well.

"Yeah, he did Will, but don't panic."

"Don't panic?"

Xander looked at Oz, who had managed to regain his usual stoic demeanour (although only just). Oz nodded back at him and the two of them stood. "Come on Willow, let's take a walk," Xander said, holding out his hand.

Willow was certain that she was going to say something to that, but she suddenly noticed how much of the restaurants attention the three of them had and her face turned beet red before she stood, without taking Xander's hand.

"Right walk, let's go."

The two men let Willow lead the way. A couple of blocks into their walk Xander wondered if he should try and get her to stop and talk with them when she made a sudden turn into one of the many graveyards that seemed to infest Sunnydale. The place was quiet, with only a few mourners around in the distance and Willow lead them to a bench beside an old oak and sat down. The two of them joined her and waited.

"Why would he think we were a threesome?"

"Kind of wondered that myself," Oz said, looking over at Xander.

"Well," Xander said, stalling for a moment and wondering if it was at all possible to explain Jack's thought processes. Even with all the memories he had he still found it difficult to figure him out. "Well..."

"You already said that." Willow sounded annoyed, but he also thought he saw just a glimpse of a smile at the edge of her lips.

"Well, he probably looked at you and at Oz and he figured that the two of you were so incredible that there wouldn't be anyway his idiot cousin wouldn't have at least tried to get together with you, hence threesome."

Willow pinked up slightly at Xander's words, and then shook her head. "But why would he think us three, I mean, guy, girl, guy. It isn't how most guys want their threesomes, you know?"

Xander's smile was a little wry. "Jack, he's, he's... I guess you'd say he's bi-sexual." It didn't really explain Jack, but it was probably the best way to describe him to a late 20th century person.

Willow masterfully stopped her jaw from falling open again, because really, the drool wasn't attractive. "Okay, so he'd do guy, girl, guy, but why would he think that you…?"

Xander sighed and hoped that this wasn't going to be a very big mistake, largely because he wasn't sure he was ready to admit this to himself, much less anyone else. "Because I think that I'm also... bi-sexual."

"Willow?"

Oz looked at her. "I think her brain has seized."

"Ah."

"So, we're incredible?"

"Incredible? The two of you are so hot you sizzle. I mean, I don't want to intrude on a new relationship, but if I thought you guys would be interested, I'd offer."

Willow blinked.

Then she punched Xander in the arm, hard.

"Ow, what was that for?"

"How could you have never told me?"

"It's still kind of new for me too, Wills."

"How new?"

"A few months, I've been trying to deny it, because you know, I always thought I only liked girls."

"Oh." A beat. "How come your cousin knows?"

"I kind of went to him for advice, since well, you know, since he's also bi-sexual."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"So are we still good?" Xander asked, realizing that that question had suddenly become more terrifying than any demon they'd ever faced.

Willow looked like she wanted to hit him again. "Of course we are."

Then she hugged him and Xander let months of uncertainty flow out of him along with a couple of tears. He pulled away and surreptitiously tried to wipe them away, but doubted he'd managed it. Then he looked over at Oz, who, although he wasn't showing it, was probably very uncomfortable.

He reached into himself and borrowed one of Jack's smirks. "So, if the two of you are ever interested, let me know, okay."

Willow's mouth fell open and Xander very wisely got out of her way before she could hit him again.

Standing, he had to smile as he looked down at the two of them on the bench. Even with the stab of jealousy he felt at losing his chance with Willow, he hoped things worked out for them.

"So, have we had enough emotional upheaval for one day, or did we still want to try for the movie?"

Willow shook her head at Xander's attempt to gain distance from what they'd just talked about, but smiled anyway. She looked over at Oz, who shrugged minimally.

"Movie," she said, standing up, glad that Oz had risen with her. "You're buying the popcorn," she said to Xander.

"How did that happen?"

"It's only fair," she said, starting to walk away, with Oz beside her. "After all, I got lunch."

"Oh, all right," he said as he followed, "but can we please see an action film, I don't thing I could handle a chick flick right now."

"Oz?" She asked, conferring with her boyfriend.

"Things blowing up, definitely."

"Sounds like James Bond it is then."

"Hallelujah."


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Torchwood belong to their perspective owners. I am not one of them. I'm just borrowing them for entertainment purposes and no money shall be made from this entertainment.

Blue Coats and Guarding the Rifts

By Colleen

Chapter 6

_The fascination of shooting as a sport depends almost wholly on whether you are at the right or wrong end of a gun. _

_**~P. G. Wodehouse**_

James Bond lived up to his usual standards and the three of them spent a pleasant couple of hours watching fast cars, fast women and suave men in tuxes (or fast men, depending on your point of view). After the movie, the three of them walked most of the way home together. Xander separated from them with a backwards wave about a block from Willow's place, leaving Oz to escort her the rest of the distance.

Xander made a half hearted stab at him homework in the time before and after supper as he had those hours to fill before he would see Jack, and possibly kill Jack. He wasn't sure if he should strangle the other immortal for making him admit to his sexuality or if he was going to thank him for making him admit to himself that his new sexuality was here to stay.

While he was trying to analyze a poem for English class and was beginning to seriously consider saying what he actually thought it was about, he had one of those segue way less memory moments and went and dug out the pieces of alien tech he'd pulled from 'Ted' a while back. While Torchwood, or the memories he had of Torchwood, made him leery about the place, he still trusted Jack enough to turn them over to him. Besides, they'd probably catalogue them and archive them and they'd never see the light of day again. This was fine by him, although he did still wonder how Ted's maker had gotten hold of them in the first place.

By the time he'd found the pieces (he really should clean out that closet) it was nearing seven o'clock. Since he didn't want his parents to meet up with 'cousin' Jack, he headed outside to wait for him.

When Jack did arrive, it was with a squeal of tires and a couple of honks to the horn. Xander just shook his head, remembering all to well the drive through Sunnydale on Halloween. He hopped into the vehicle and braced himself, figuring he wouldn't have time to do up the seatbelt before Jack took off.

Jack did in fact make it two blocks before Xander managed to click the belt home and unclench the muscles that were keeping him from bouncing around in the car.

"So, where are we going?"

Jack smiled, but didn't say anything and Xander wondered if he should start to panic.

Wait a minute. This was Jack.

Yep, panic, that sounded about right.

* * *

Sunnydale wasn't a big enough town for Xander to not know where they were when Jack pulled up in front of a non-descript building.

Xander turned in his seat and looked at Jack, his eyes wide. "You're kidding."

"Nope, come on." Jack grabbed a case from the seat behind him and slid out of the car. Xander followed with a little shake of his head.

Jack opened the door to the building and the sound of gunfire and the smell of cordite filled the air. Xander followed Jack to a check in counter, looking around at the few people wearing ear protection and standing in different lanes while they fired away at paper targets. He turned back to watch Jack sign in. Since he didn't have to do much more than give his name, Xander suspected that he'd reserved some space ahead of time.

"Jack, what are we doing here?" He asked as he followed the older man to lane four.

"We're teaching you how to shoot."

They arrived at their lane, and Xander looked around, noticing that the ones on either side of them were currently empty.

"Bullets don't work on... you know what's."

"Sure they do, not as well as they usually work on other things, but they still work."

Xander thought of the two vamps writhing on the floor the other night and had to concede that it had left them in a state that would have made staking them a lot easier.

"You know, technically, I do know how to shoot, Jack."

Jack gave him a light thump to his head. "Up here, maybe. Your body, however, is an entirely different matter."

Xander sighed, because yeah, he had to concede that too. Memory was great, but even he'd realized early on, the first time he'd wandered up on a roof in fact, that sometimes his body didn't seem to know how to do what his mind told it.

"I thought we needed to talk?"

"After the shooting." Jack set the case he'd brought in down on a side table and started to open it, and then paused. "Do you have a problem with guns?"

"No, no," Xander said, voice fading off as he gave the question a moments serious thought. "No, I don't, I guess it's just that we don't tend to use them. When we do fight, it's kind of... Old School, I mean really Old School."

Jack shook his head and finished opening the case. "Watchers, as far as I can tell they never made it to the 19th century, much less the 20th. I shudder to think of them in the 21st if they keep on the way they are." He waved his hand towards the open case. "Let's start with the Webley; it will probably be the one you understand best."

* * *

Learning to shoot, or to be more specific, having Jack teach him to shoot was one hell of an experience. The memories he did have of Jack teaching were to groups, mostly training during the wars. In the last fifty-eight years, it seemed he'd refined his methods to include one on one teaching.

The first time Jack pressed up against his back and helped him aim Xander briefly considered stomping down on his foot. He didn't, because even though the position felt far to intimate, the moment Jack had done it Xander could feel how wrong his stance had been before Jack had repositioned him.

The rest of the lesson was like that, closeness and touches that did terrible things to his teenage libido, and yet seemed to make each gun he used a natural extension of his arm and body.

And even when Jack backed away and let him go at it solo, the teaching held. He still had a long way to go before he had Jack's accuracy, but he was able to more or less hit what he shot at.

After they'd finished, Jack led Xander to a relatively quieter area of the shooting range and showed him how to clean the guns. While they did, Jack told him what he'd reported to Torchwood and that to allay the Institutes fears he would be keeping in touch with Xander from time to time.

"You can also expect a care package in a few days, just a little collection of things that will hopefully help you here."

Xander nodded. "Speaking of packages..."

"Yes?" The expression on Jack's face left no doubt as to what kind of package he hoped Xander was talking about.

Xander blushed slightly and mentally kicked himself for walking into that one. He then pretended to completely ignore Jack's rather lusty smirk.

"I still have one of your old uniforms and your second great coat. You'd probably like them back.

Jack paused and seemed to study the gun he was cleaning a little closer.

"Seems to me they're kind of yours now."

"I don't really have much use for the uniform at the moment." Xander said, paying extra attention to his cleaning as well. "The coat, the coat feels right, which actually makes me uncomfortable in a strange way, but," he looked up at Jack, "I'd really hate to part with it. Most of the time I feel naked witho... Oh, I did not just say that."

Jack smirked. "Oh yes, you did. And as much as naked you sounds like fun, I still think you should hold onto the coat."

Xander turned his attention back to cleaning the guns. The silence stretched for a moment, then snapped.

"Thanks."

Jack just nodded.

Once they'd finished with the cleaning, they packed up the guns and headed out to Jack's rental.

Back in the SUV Xander had a sudden thought and he reached over and punched Jack in the shoulder. Jack looked at him as if he'd gone nuts and Xander just shrugged. "Willow gave me that this afternoon, so I thought I'd pass it along to you."

Jack gave his shoulder a rub. "Why did she do that?"

"Oh, I don't know, maybe because someone came in and suggested, no wait, out and out said we were a threesome, which freaked both of them out and somehow during the explanation for why you'd said that I had to tell them that I was bi-sexual, and yeah, I know you think that having a label to explain your sexuality to someone is strange, but I did have to and then Willow punched me for not telling her sooner."

Jack stared at Xander. "Wow, do you ever have great breath control."

"Jack!"

Jack smirked briefly, but his face quickly fell into a more serious look. "I'm sorry."

Xander didn't look like he believed him.

"Really. I honestly thought that the three of you were together."

"Why?"

Jack shrugged and frowned. "I don't know, now that you ask. When I looked at her I just had this thought that you were really lucky to have a Willow in your life." Jack stopped talking, his expression slightly shocked

"You knew her name before I introduced you?"

"I, I'm not sure." They looked at each other, perplexed and slightly concerned. Then Jack shrugged and continued with what he had been saying.

"When you said the other guy, uh, Oz?"

Xander nodded.

"When you said he was her boyfriend, I thought you meant he was her boyfriend too. So, sorry."

Xander sighed a little. "Apology accepted. Besides, I can't say the thought hasn't occurred to me either. I even made an open offer, once I'd told them, but I doubt they'll take me up on it."

"To bad."

Xander nodded. "Yeah, it is."

* * *

Jack found them a cafe with decent coffee and even better desserts and they each ordered something heavy on the chocolate before sitting down to talk over anything they might have forgotten to discuss previously.

Taking the opportunity Xander explained about killer robot Ted and handed over the pieces he'd scavenged from the deranged android. Jack looked them over and pocketed them, somehow relieved that occasionally some of the things that happened in this town were of an understandable nature, at least to him.

For his part Jack drilled his contact information into Xander's head and told him that the next time they needed rocket launcher type help to call him. Even if he couldn't be there in person he might be able to get them help from other quarters.

* * *

It was a few hours later when Jack dropped Xander off at his house.

"Sure you don't want to spend another night at my hotel room? We could do the breakfast thing in the morning before I have to catch my plane."

Xander shook his head. "If I said yes, what would happen?"

Jack smiled devilishly for a moment, before the look turned slightly sheepish. "We'd talk, sleep, and have breakfast."

"That's what I thought."

"Still," Jack said, "ask me again in a few years, I'll probably have a different answer."

Xander's smile was a little sad. "It's entirely possible that I won't age."

"Well, your body might not age, but you'll still be older where it counts, believe me."

Xander tilted his head a little in agreement and then got out of the car. He waved as Jack drove off before heading into the house.

In a few years, he might just hold Jack to that different answer.

* * *

Three days later, on Tuesday morning, Xander smiled as he listened in on Willow and Oz as they discussed the movie they'd gone out to see the next night without him along as a third wheel. He frowned slightly over the awkward moment the two of them shared, wondering what was up with that. However, when Willow left Oz to go talk with Buffy, Xander wisely decided not to get in between the two of them. They appeared to have some serious girl talk to deal with. He briefly considered saving Oz from the joy of Larry's presence, but as long as there was no violence, he, as the slightly jealous friend of the girl Oz was dating, chose to be petty and let the musician fend for himself.

And that, as far as school was concerned, was the highlight of the day.

That afternoon, after school, Xander got his care package. Which he very wisely took upstairs to his room to open.

It was like Christmas, if Christmas came armed. Looking over the instruction manuals that had been packed in on top Xander got the feeling that he would need his own Q to help him understand how all of his new Secret Agent swag worked.

The guns were the first thing he unpacked and he thought they would be simple, but as he matched them to their manuals, he found they were anything but.

One looked almost like a standard semi-automatic. However, the gun had been reworked with a dash of alien technology. The recoil was dampened until it was almost non-existent and the noise of the shot was lowered to about half the level it normally would have been. Jack had sent along six standard magazines for the weapon. It also came with another six magazines that where anything but standard. Jack's note with them suggested that they might work better against certain dimensional beings. However, he also suggested that Xander use them sparingly. Something Xander agreed with, because he didn't think it would go over well if he used the explosive shells during target practice.

Jack also mentioned in the note that he was doing some experimenting with wood based weaponry and ammo and if he came up with anything viable he'd send it along, post haste.

The second gun in the package came with another six slim clips that each held tightly packed flechettes instead of normal bullet. This allowed each clip to hold up to nearly 200 rounds each. (Differences in the manufacturing and metallurgy caused the count to shift from around 197 rounds to 200 rounds per clip, but the difference was negligible, besides, if you hadn't killed it by then, then you were already screwed).

The third gun, an unmodified Enfield No. 2 MK 1 Revolver, was a bit of a surprise, but a welcome one. Jack's memories of the .38 calibre weapon was that it was the gun that had been officially issued to soldiers during World War II. However, shortages had caused the Webley's to continue being issued as well. The Enfield came with two speed loaders, and two moon clips, both for faster reloading, which, if he ever had to use the gun off the range, could come in handy.

Xander also recalled through Jack's memories that the gun had less recoil than the Webley and therefore better accuracy for the less adept marksman. It was lighter, as well, which wasn't surprising as it was a smaller calibre gun. One thousand rounds for the Enfield were also in the case, leaving Xander to suspect that Jack thought he'd be using that gun the most.

A Stun Gun, with stun and kill settings rounded out the collection.

Xander was almost afraid to look at the rest of the items in the package after those first four. Therefore, it was almost anti-climatic when the next item turned out to be a cell phone.

The phone was smaller and slimmer than the current models and the note with it said that the number to reach Jack, anytime and the number to reach UNIT in case of a world-ending emergency were already programmed into the cell's memory. It also had a camera, satellite uplink, and GPS (all of which were either unusual, or non-existent in 1998) There were another four phones in the package, that did not come with the pre-programmed numbers or most of the bells and whistles, although they could double as satellite phones as needed.

The note further said that he should give one of the phones to Willow, with the rest of them going to whomever he thought might need them. Use was unlimited and the contracts on them were covered for the next three years, after that they would discuss what to do about them.

The next thing out of the box went back to disturbing. Twelve pre-filled, needle topped syringes lay lined up in a black case. Another note lay inside with them, leaving Xander to wonder just how may of the things Jack had written. The syringe's contents all turned out to be tranquilizers, which made Xander feel a little better about them, but only just. They were apparently strong enough to take out a Weevil.

The rest of the package held holsters and cleaning kits. There were also registrations in Xander's name for the guns (and how Jack had managed to register the stun gun, he didn't know), permits to carry concealed, and a one year prepaid membership to the shooting range. In the very bottom of the box he found a credit card in his name with a post it note stuck to it that said it was for gas and emergencies only, and two sets of car keys.

Gas? Car keys?

He bound down the stairs and out the front door to see a black SUV parked in front of his house. When one of the keys opened it, he wasn't sure if he should shout with joy or growl with annoyance.

The vehicle registration clipped to the visor was in his name, while the paperwork on the driver's side seat had the vehicle listed as a company car, leased to the Torchwood Institute, with him listed as primary driver. The paperwork also said that the lease was prepaid for the next two years.

Xander shook his head, while all of this was very cool, Jack shouldn't be spending this kind of money.

Well, unless it was Torchwood money, but that opened its own assortment of problems.

Xander flipped open the cell phone, found Jack's number and hit send.

The phone rang twice. "Harkness."

"Jaaaaaack."

"Ah, Xander, I take it you got the care package."

"Yeah, you could say that. Jack, as much as I think all of this is necessary, how could you possibly afford it? And if you didn't, how did you get it past Torchwood."

"I didn't. All I had to do was show my boss Alex that you, three girls, a short musician, and a librarian with a bunch of antiquated weapons and an even older car was all that was standing between your rift and the end of the world."

Xander winced. "I'm surprised that he didn't try to get the army or UNIT sent in or something."

"Nah, he knows just how well those groups don't work in a situation like yours. Here we tend to believe in using a smaller team that actually knows what they're doing, which yours does. Besides, we managed to get the money out of Torchwood London, to monitor a secondary rift in North America that may affect the one here in Cardiff."

"Ah, Jack, our Hellmouth and your rift really aren't anything alike."

"We did say 'may affect', not does affect, and personally, if yours opened I don't think there would be anything that wasn't affected."

"True. I guess... Thank you Jack."

"You're welcome. Have fun."

Jack hung up before he could say anything else and Xander ended his side of the call with a push of a button and a shake of his head. All of this stuff was very cool, but it did seem a little bit like overkill. He gave his head a thump. Thinking something like that was almost as bad as asking what else could go wrong, because here, the answer was everything.

So of course, that night a werewolf was spotted at Lover's lane.

Giles called it a classic and Xander had to agree, it was classic. Classic Torchwood.

Xander called Jack.

Naturally he and Jack were well versed in the event that caused the formation of The Torchwood Institute in the first place. Jack had long felt that the accounts about the attack on Queen Victoria by a Werewolf were biased. Mostly those parts of the report that involved the Doctor and Rose. He knew that the last thing they were was a threat to humanity. However, he had always accepted that the threat assessment of the Werewolf, or rather the Lupine wavelength haemovariform (Xander figured he'd stick with calling them Werewolves) was as advertised, especially as the Doctor had dealt with the creature.

Xander was mostly calling for a little advice, as it had been awhile, even in his memories, since Jack had read that file and he was a little shaky on the details. He also wanted to know if there was anyway he could be certain that this was the same type of creature the Doctor had come up against, or if it might be another breed that had more to do with his 'dimensional travellers'.

"So you think that your type of werewolf and my type of werewolf aren't always the same?" Jack asked over the phone.

"Well…" Xander looked across the library as Giles pulled out another stack of books that dealt with werewolves. "Let's just say that we have a little too much reference material for something that's only been around since the 16th century. Especially something that was controlled and passed down from one unlucky person to another, by a group of crazed monks."

"Okay, but you might want to keep an eye out for a few crazed monks, I'd think they'd fit in well around there."

Xander had to concede that point. "I don't suppose there'd be anyway we could check scientifically, like compare DNA samples or something?"

"Sorry, Victoria had the body cremated and the ashes disposed of at sea."

"Wow, she was certainly thorough."

"You should read the institutes charter and original rules of conduct as set out by her. A corset was less constraining."

"Yeah, well, you would know."

"Hey, you do what you have to when you're undercover. Just wait until you end up in drag sometime."

Xander smiled a little ruefully. "Too late." His eyes narrowed as he heard Jack snicker, but he didn't say anything.

Jack stopped, but Xander could still hear the humour in his voice. "So, do you want me to send you some silver bullets? I hadn't thought to include those."

Xander thought about it for a moment, but shook his head and then said no since Jack couldn't see the head shake over the phone. "I think they want to try for a live capture, so I'll take along a couple of the tranqs and the stun gun. Do you think I should look to buy some mistletoe?"

Xander listened to dead air as Jack mulled that over. "No, it's entirely possible that the haemovariform's reaction to mistletoe was a response that the monks trained into him. Besides, if your werewolf is different, then it may not work either way. And I think you should take at least three of the tranquilizers with you, you never know what you might run into out there. If you do catch it, or at least manage to get a sample, blood, tissue, whatever, I can get UNIT to run it. We may not have the original to compare it to, but they may be able to tell if it's alien or terrestrial."

Xander wasn't completely comfortable with the idea of bringing UNIT in on it, but it might be better than involving Torchwood too much.

"Oh," Jack continued, "and if you get the chance, try out the stun gun on one of the, uh...one of the..."

"Come on Jack, you can say it."

"Fine, Vampires, happy now?"

"Ecstatic."

He heard Jack snort in response. "Try the stun gun out on one of them if you get the chance, I'd like to know if it can incapacitate them, or if it would only annoy them."

"Oh, it will be really fun if it only annoys them."

"So do it when the Slayer's there."

Oh, even more fun, 101 questions about where he'd gotten the stun gun, coming up.

* * *

Even werewolves couldn't stop the slow march that was the school day, and Buffy, Xander, Willow, Oz and Cordelia found themselves standing around on exercise mats in the school gym with the rest of the phys Ed class.

The instructor, Miss Litto, in true teacher fashion, broke the group up into smaller groups to practice self-defence. Xander ended up paired with Willow and Cordelia (and yes, his mind went there, how could it not?). As the two girls were going to attempt to take him down, Xander started pulling on some protective gear. As he did, he found his attention drawn to Larry, mostly because he was being louder and more obnoxious than usual and not because he was taking off his jacket, really.

Xander froze with the padded vest halfway on when noticed the huge bandage on Larry's arm.

"What happened to you?"

Larry looked at the bandage with a kind of, 'oh, yeah, I'd forgotten' look on his face.

"Ah, last week some huge dog jumped out of the bushes and bit me. Thirty-nine stitches. They ought to shoot those strays.

Oz looked over at Larry's arm and nodded. "I've been there, man." He held up one of his fingers. "My cousin Jordy. Just got his grown-up teeth in. Does not like to be tickled."

Willow of course immediately checked her boyfriend over for damage.

"Looks like it healed already."

"The emotional scar is still there." Oz would have almost looked like he was playing up the devastated angle, if it wasn't for the fact that he was so darn stoic.

Larry went off to be offensive to Theresa, which got Buffy involved, enough so that Willow reminded her that she was supposed to be a defenceless girly, girl at the moment.

Xander had to smile at the thought of any of his girls being defenceless. Since he was now as protected as any male might be in a situation like this, he decided to make things a little more interesting and borrowed a bit of Jack before asking, "So, who wants a piece of me?"

Xander caught the majority of the class's attention with that line. It was a tribute to his delivery that most of them didn't even consider violence when they thought of what piece they might want.

As it turned out, best friends and previously old enemies were immune enough to his charms to follow through with the day's lesson. In very short order, Willow and Cordelia had punched, kicked and generally pummelled Xander into the ground.

Xander lay there groaning, mostly to cover up the fact that the two girls working in tandem like that had been one of the most arousing things he'd seen all week. The rest of the groaning was just pain, and he blessed the inventor of protective gear for not letting it be worse.

After Xander managed to stagger to his feet and shuck the gear from his body, he watched as Larry stepped up his obnoxious levels another notch, this time with Buffy. Larry was usually bad, but recently he seemed to be doing and saying even more inappropriate things than usual. It was as if he was asking for a slap down and the heartfelt dislike of every girl in the school and while Xander didn't usually bother to waste his time or effort wondering about Larry, he did have to wonder what was up with that.

Still, the question didn't stop Xander from enjoying it immensely when Buffy decided she'd had enough and slammed Larry into the mats in a move that would have made a professional wrestler proud.

* * *

As much as Xander didn't want to give Larry much thought, when searching for a werewolf you'd have to be an idiot to ignore someone who'd recently been attacked by a dog, who had become even more, dare he think it, beastly than usual and who seemed to be hiding something.

As the locker room emptied after class, Xander watched as Larry lingered. When everyone else had left and Larry believed he was alone, a subtle shift came over the jock and he slumped tiredly at the sinks as he looked at himself in the mirror.

Xander quietly stepped in behind him, and had a brief moment's satisfaction as he watched Larry start when he saw Xander in the glass.

"Harris."

"You seem a little jumpy there Larry, over doing it on the caffeine?

Larry growled at him and stalked over to his locker. Xander smiled, given that reaction he figured he had their werewolf all sewn up.

"You know Larry, the way you've been acting lately, someone would think that you may be hiding something."

"I could hide my fist in your face."

Larry opened his locker and Xander briefly admired the bikini clad girl collage Larry had covered the insides of it with. Then he reached over and slammed the locker door shut in Larry's face.

"I know your secret, big guy. I know what you've been doing at night."

Larry took a deep breath. "You know, Harris, that nosey-nose of yours is going to get you into trouble some day." He suddenly grabbed Xander and slammed him into the lockers. "Some day like today."

Xander smiled, and his mind quickly formulated and disposed of several things he could say now, all of them heavy on the sexual innuendo. However, he thought that the truth was probably more important right now.

"Hurting me won't make this go away. People are still going to find out."

"All right, what do you want? Hush money? Is that what you're after?"

"I don't want anything. I just want to help."

Larry let go of Xander and backed off a couple of steps. "You want to help. What, you think you have a cure?" Xander realized, looking at him, that he'd never have thought that Larry could have felt something so strongly as to look so lost now.

"No, it's just… I know what you're going through." (Hello, hyena). "Because I've been there. And that's why I know you should talk about it."

"Sure, that's easy for you to say. You're nobody. But I've got a reputation."

"Larry, please. Before someone gets hurt."

Larry started to pace.

"If this gets out, it's over for me. Forget about playing football; they'll run me out of town. I mean, come on. How do you think people are going to look at me once they find out I'm gay?"

Xander stood there frozen, his expression doing a fair job of imitating the look of a deer in headlights.

How the hell had he missed that!

Larry for his part looked equally shocked.

"Wow. I said it. And it felt… okay."

He looked at Xander and spoke with more confidence.

"I'm gay. I am gay."

Xander just shook his head as so much of what Larry did suddenly made sense. Even if Jack memories had always thought that all the labels people had for their sexuality were unnecessary and limiting, he had lived through the Victorian Era. He had seen more than one person have to hide what Larry was hiding.

He really should have known.

"I can't believe it," Larry said, near ecstatic. "I mean, that was almost easy. I… I never felt like I could tell anyone. And then you, of all people, bring it out of me."

"It would have come out eventually, believe me."

"No. Because knowing you went through the same thing made it easier for me to admit it."

Xander opened his mouth to deny that he had gone through the same thing, and then snapped it shut as he guessed it was similar. He had the feeling that Larry had had it rougher though, as he must have been hiding it for years. In Xander's case, it had all happened rather rapidly, and had had an outside source as a catalyst. "It's ironic. All those times I beat the crap out of you, it must have been because Irecognized something in you that I didn't want to believe about myself."

"What? No, Larry, I wasn't..."

Larry held up a hand to stop Xander from continuing.

"Oh, of course. Don't worry. I wouldn't do that to you." He leaned in and spoke with more goodwill than Xander had ever expected to see him express."Your secret's safe with me."

He clapped Xander on the shoulder and then left the locker room. Once he'd gone, Xander sank down on a bench and held his head in his hands. It would have been so much easier if Larry had just been a werewolf on top of being a bullying idiot. Now, he was an actual person to him.


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: Don't own them, for full disclaimer please see chapter 1.

Blue Coats and Guarding the Rifts

by Colleen

Chapter 7

_There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls. _

_**~George Carlin**_

Still a little shell shocked from Larry's revelations, Xander walked back to the library. When he saw Buffy and Giles preparing for an evening of werewolf hunting, he reminded then to take their new phones along, in case they ended up needing help.

After some thought Xander had decided that since Cordelia already had a cell phone, he would give the four other phones to Willow, Giles, Buffy and Oz. A tale of winning them in a video store contest covered were they came from and now all of them had some way to call the others for help during an emergency. Assuming Giles actually managing to figure out how to use his.

Willow was also in the library, looking up a few last minute facts and Xander sat down beside her.

"Hey."

"Hey."

Willow frowned and put her book down. "What's the matter?"

Buffy looked over at them. "You got that something was wrong from 'Hey'?"

"I can pack a lot of meaning into three letters." Xander told her in mock seriousness.

"And you're avoiding the question." Willow said, bringing their attention back to her.

"It's nothing."

Buffy and Willow looked at each other. "You also don't lie very convincingly," Buffy told him.

Xander sighed, "I came to a wrong conclusion."

"Xander, do we have to strip the answer out of you?"

Oh, the things he could have done with that question.

"I figured that since Larry had recently been bitten by an animal and was acting even stranger than usual that he might be our werewolf." He waited a beat as they both got an excited expression on their faces. "He isn't."

Both faces fell.

"Darn it, are you sure?"

Xander nodded.

Buffy sighed. "To bad, if he had been we could have had this wrapped up in time to make it home for supper."

Xander looked a little uncomfortable, as he wondered how she would have wrapped it up. "Are you still going for a live capture?"

"Of course," Giles said as he joined the conversation. "No matter who this werewolf is, it's still a human being. One who might be completely unaware of his, or her, condition."

* * *

Xander had decided, without telling Buffy or the others, to patrol some of the neighbourhoods around the school in case their werewolf went and changed his hunting grounds. If he didn't, then that was fine, as Buffy and Giles had that area covered.

At worse he figured he'd run into the werewolf, or maybe a couple of minions, at best, he figured he'd be bored.

Somehow, he managed to get the third option, known as worser.

Of all the frickin' vampires he could run into why did it have to be Angel, or rather Angelus. Hell, he'd have preferred Spike, even if he'd probably have to deal with the whole, I killed you, thing again.

The only consolation was that he'd rather deal with Spike and Angelus together than Drusilla by herself.

Angel appeared to be walking Theresa home and Xander thought that they were probably fairly close to it, which meant that if Angelus were going to make a move it would be about now.

Stepping in to stop it was barely even a conscious thought.

"Hey, Angel, buddy, long time no see."

Angelus whipped his head around to look at Xander. Xander had to congratulate himself on being right, as the vampire's face had just started to shift. As he watched it smoothed out and Angelus gave him a look that said he'd just found the prize at the bottom of his box of cereal.

"Harris. It has been a long time." He looked over at Theresa, back at Xander and then licked his lips as if the two teens were desserts and he couldn't make up his mind which one to buy.

"Real long, we should catch up."

Angelus smiled an evil, evil grin. "We should, soon." Then he grabbed Theresa and shifted to game face.

Xander swore and sprinted the last few feet that had separated him and the vampire. He pulled his stun gun as he did and Angelus' teeth were just millimetres from cutting into flesh when Xander rammed the gun into the vampire's ribs and pressed the trigger.

Angelus spasmed, his arms tightening on the girl, who also jerked as some of the charge moved from him to her. Both of them dropped to the ground, Theresa unconscious and Angel cursing and smoking slightly.

Xander used a word that Jack had learned from the creatures that had taught him everything he'd never wanted to know about torture and flipped the gun from stun to kill before pulling out one of the two stakes he always carried.

Angelus looked at Xander in shock and tried to shift into game face, so he could tear the kid's throat out, but found his body wasn't quite up to doing what his mind told it too. When he saw Harris do something to the taser thing as well as pull out a stake, he decided that existing to fight another day trumped staying here and maybe getting killed, so he lurched to his feet and stumbled away.

Oh no, there was no way Angelus was getting away now. Xander took one step towards the vampire and then stiffened when he heard a growl at his back. He turned to see a very furry, very vicious looking werewolf, standing behind him.

"You have got to be kidding me."

The werewolf leapt at him and he lost a few precious seconds flipping the stun gun back to its lower setting. The few seconds were enough for the werewolf to smash into him and they both went down in a pile of fur and claws. Thankfully, the stun gun ended up pressed up against the werewolf and Xander triggered it. He caught part of the charge himself, but like it would have with Jack, it hurt, but it didn't take him down. He heaved the shape shifter off him as it jerked from the shock. Not waiting to see if stun gun had worked, Xander pulled out one of the syringes. It was still intact, but only because Torchwood had them made them from an alien polymer that could stand up to situations in the field. He pulled the protective top off it, jabbed the needle into recovering werewolf upper chest and pressed the plunger home.

The creature struggled for a few moments more, and then stilled into a deep sleep. Xander slumped, sitting down on the ground as he took stock of himself as well as a deep breath. On the minus side, Angelus had gotten away. On the plus side, Theresa hadn't ended up as vamp food and he'd caught the werewolf.

Of course, now he had to tell some or all of this to Buffy and Giles…

And Willow.

Oh, he was so dead.

Again.

* * *

The cell phones came in handy (although next time he was calling Buffy first, he'd tried Giles this time, but the librarian had ended up accidentally hanging up on him when he'd tried to answer the phone). Buffy and Giles got there just in time, as Theresa was waking up. Buffy helped her up and walked her home, managing to keep her from looking behind her to see the werewolf asleep on the sidewalk.

Since the idea of fitting the werewolf into Giles' car was pretty much a joke, Xander jogged the couple of blocks over to where he'd left the SUV and drove it back to pick it up.

Buffy had just gotten back from dropping off Theresa and she looked at the vehicle with some surprise. "Where did you get that?"

Xander had at least figured out what to say about the SUV ahead of time. "It's my cousins, or rather it's the company car he uses when he's in the states."

Giles looked it over. "And they let you use it."

"Yeah, they prefer to have someone driving it and looking after it rather than have it garaged. I guess the lease costs the same either way and with me using it they save on the storage fee."

"Cool," Buffy said, as she hoisted the werewolf up over one of her shoulders. Xander opened the back of the vehicle and helped her fit the shape shifter in it. Once it was secured, he closed the back and looked over to Giles. "So, where are we taking him?"

"The library, I've set up the book cage to house him... or her until they wake up. Once we're dealing with a human we'll figure out what to do."

Xander nodded and climbed behind the wheel while Buffy rode shotgun, leaving Giles to bring up the rear in his old Citron.

* * *

They called Willow and Cordelia to let them know about the capture and the girls joined them at the library to look over the sleeping werewolf. When Willow congratulated Buffy for the capture, Buffy let her know that it was actually Xander that had done the capturing.

"Are you nuts?" Xander cringed and wondered what the deal was with Willow and Cordelia suddenly doing things together, and why it always seemed to end in pain for him.

"No, just either really lucky or really unlucky."

"And why was Theresa there?" Buffy asked, and Xander weighed telling her some of the truth or all of it. He went for some. "Vamp attack, I scared it off, but then ended up with a werewolf at my back."

"Wait, back up, you scared off a vampire?"

Xander sighed, "I used a taser on it, it was stunned, but I didn't have a chance to deal with it as the werewolf showed up about then. It staggered off while I was zapping and tranqing the werewolf. "

Willow looked disturbed. "Xander, were did you get a taser and tranquilizers?"

Xander was ready for that question as well. "My cousin. He went and checked out Sunnydale's murder and death rates and when he found out what they were he sent me the taser and tranqs for self defence." They looked at him like he had to be kidding. Xander shrugged and adlibbed. "He's a bit a survivalist nut."

"What," Buffy said, "you mean he lives in an underground bunker with lots of weapons?"

Xander blinked slightly in shock. "Actually, now that you mention it, that's exactly how he lives."

"Is this your cousin, Jack?" Willow asked.

Xander nodded.

"But, he seemed so normal."

Xander coughed slightly. "I can't say that I've ever thought of Jack and normal before in the same sentence."

"Oh."

"Okay, so you were armed, but it was still a stupid thing to do."

"I'm not actually going to argue with you about it Buffy, because yeah, it was stupid, but it saved a life, so I'd do it again in a second".

Buffy looked like she intended to argue vigorously with him and Xander put up a hand to stop her. "Please, let's not fight. We have the rest of the night to wait through and then a confused person to help come morning and that's more important." He looked over at the werewolf. "We should probably get them some clothes as well, cause once they change back, they'll be naked."

The rest of them looked like they hadn't considered that until now, and there was a sudden scrambling as they and Giles went off to see what spare clothing they might have stored in offices and lockers.

Xander sighed in relief as peace suddenly reigned in the library and he reached under the reading table and pulled out a small duffle bag that held packaged sweats, t-shirts, boxers and socks, figuring they'd probably do for their guest come morning. He'd paid heed to Jack's memories about just how much damage ones clothing took when one died and came back, and had been keeping a few generic changes in the SUV since he'd gotten it. He had brought the bag in with him while Buffy and Giles had dealt with the werewolf and had dumped it under the table for later.

He got up, wandered over to the book cage and watched as the shape shifter sleep.

"I really hope you're not Jack's kind of werewolf, because it you are, I'll probably have to kill you, human or not."

And then he sat back down, and waited.

* * *

Cordelia was asleep on the couch in the office, Giles and Buffy were mostly awake and talking quietly and Willow was passed out on a very awake Xander's shoulder when the dawn finally arrived.

The werewolf made a slightly distressed sound, somewhere between a growl and a moan, before it became just a moan. Xander gave Willow a shake, she woke up bleary and a little lost. He nodded towards the cage and she nodded back and got up to see who the werewolf would turn out to be.

Giles and Buffy had arrived at the cage first and Xander was suddenly worried, as they both went very still. Cordelia, looking like she'd been socked in the face with a sleep mallet, came out of the office and staggered over to the cage with everyone else.

Buffy turned as Willow approached, for a moment it looked like she wanted to stop the redhead from joining them at the cage. The worry churning around in Xander's stomach turned into a lead ball of dread as Willow looked into the cage and froze, not even breathing.

"Willow?" Xander stepped up beside her, his attention on her.

She gasped in a breath. "It's Oz."

Xander turned to look in the cage and saw a very naked Daniel Osborne sit up and look around, confused. Xander noted that the musician was a natural redhead before he mentally swatted that part of his brain for joining in at an inappropriate time. "I'll get him some clothes." He returned to the table and collected his duffle bag. The clothes would be rather large on Oz, but they would do until he got home.

By the time he got back to the cage, Oz had gone from confused, to scared. Although you would probably have to be an expert on Oz and his near lack of expression to figure that out. "What am I doing in the book cage and why am I naked?" Everyone looked at each other, trying to pick out who would do the explaining.

Willow swallowed and moved in closer to the cage. "Oz, you're the werewolf."

Oz looked around the cage, down at his naked body and then up at everyone watching him.

"Whoa."

* * *

Yep, Xander had been right; his clothes were huge on Oz. Still, the pants were drawstring, so they weren't in any danger of falling off at the moment.

And yeah, he had a brief moment where he wondered why that was a good thing.

Giles was in full lecture mode, and using props as he explained to Oz and the rest of them how Oz should be fine, except that he would have to lock himself up three nights a month. And that would of course include the upcoming night as well.

"And that," Buffy said, summing up for Giles before he could run on too much more, "Would be a good thing, since there is also a werewolf hunter in Sunnydale looking for you."

"A werewolf hunter?"

Buffy and Giles quickly filled everyone in on their run in with a man named Cain and what his plans for Oz would be if he caught him.

Oz looked sick, something Xander couldn't blame him for. "Oz, do you have any idea how...?"

"Traditionally the new werewolf was infected by the bite of another werewolf." Giles added in helpfully.

Oz shook his head. "The only bite I've gotten in the last few days was from my cousin, but that would be..."

Xander didn't say anything, but if Oz were infected by the Scottish haemovariform cell, it could have been gathering strength for sometime before it managed to fully manifest.

"Um, I'll just borrow the office phone if that's alright." Oz looked around at everyone. "I seem to have lost my cell phone along with my clothes, uh, sorry about that Xander," Xander just shrugged.

Willow reached into a pocket, pulled out her phone and handed it over to him shyly. "Here, use mine instead."

Oz took it with a "thanks" and after a moments thought keyed in a number. Everyone attempted to look like they weren't listening in while he talked with his Aunt and verified that his cousin was indeed a werewolf. Oz said his goodbyes, ended the call and just sat there in quiet shock.

* * *

While everyone else headed home so they could grab a shower, a change of clothes and some breakfast, Xander volunteered to drive Oz home so he could do the same and stop swimming in Xander's backup clothes. When they pulled up to Oz's place, instead of getting out he continued to sit, unmoving.

"Oz?"

"Just wondering, is this where you tell me to stay out of Willow's life?"

"No, this is where I tell you to be careful with Willow's life, because you know, that kill you slowly and feed you to a demon clause still holds."

Oz arched an eyebrow at him and Xander chuckled. "I think Willow's the only one who can decide if she wants you in her life or not."

"I won't blame her if it's not." Oz said. He got out of the car and headed inside without a backward glance.

Xander sighed, yanked out his phone and dialled the first number in the memory.

"Hey Jack, got some time to talk?"

* * *

Jack hung up the phone, took a deep breath and then let it out. "Damn it." Why did it have to be Oz, or more specifically, Willow's Oz.? He only hoped Xander was right, since he seemed to think that this might be another form of lycanthropy than the one Torchwood was familiar with. Given the speed with which the infection took place and the very slight wound it took to cause it, he might very well be correct in his thinking.

Jack started a search through the Torchwood mainframe for anything that might match up with the new information, while hiding it as a routine updating of old files. Due to the time difference between Sunnydale and Cardiff, it was mid afternoon where he was. They'd had a couple of slow days, so something that looked like a make work project shouldn't raise any eyebrows or interest.

Also due to the quiet his boss Alex and the rest of the team had gone out for coffee, Jack had stayed behind to answer Xander's call and never made it out of the hub to join them.

He looked around, slightly perplexed. This was usually when all hell decided to break loose.

Nothing.

The computer startled him when it pinged back a response to his search, much sooner than he'd expected to get any results. He looked over the report it had pulled up and almost felt like bouncing his head off the nearest flat surface.

1973, Shape shifter, lead field agent, Jack Harkness.

Doh.

* * *

Once Xander had finished talking with Jack, he made a quick run home for his own shower and a fresh change of clothes. He grabbed a package of Twinkies and a drink box of orange juice on his way out the door.

The Twinkies were getting a little stale, something that didn't usually happen to a Twinkie around his house. Once again, it was Jack's fault. His memories kept insisting on calling them 'lady fingers' and the immortal had always found their shape and cream filling amusing for reasons that initially had Xander wanting to scrub out of his mind.

He wondered if he should be disturbed that he was now finding similar amusement with the snack cake, but decided that anything that let him once again eat Twinkies couldn't be all-bad.

* * *

The group managed to drag themselves through the day on little sleep. Xander was in fact more awake than he had a right to be. He suspected that like Jack, he probably would end up not needing much sleep, which really did bite as he sincerely enjoyed sleeping in.

The day, well it was a day and they got through it. Nothing much happened. Xander did track down Theresa and quietly explained to her that the guy who had walked her home the night before was Buffy's ex. He let her know that she should avoid him and not mention it to Buffy, because the guy was an asshole who just wouldn't take get lost for an answer. He also suggested that she not walk at night if she could help it, but he didn't know if it would take or not.

After school, Xander offered to sit with Oz while the musician was locked up in the book cage during his werewolf time. He crashed on the couch in Giles' office during the in-between time because even he needed some sleep. Giles would be there too, although he was going to catch some sleep on the couch after Xander got up.

Buffy would go home and catch a few hours, before going out on patrol. She also expected to keep an eye out for the local werewolf hunter in case he caused any problems.

Cordelia and Willow headed home, although Xander expected to see Willow again later, as he suspected that she would wind herself up until she had to come back.

When Xander woke up it was after 8:00 o'clock. Oz was already sitting in the book cage, but even though it was dark out he was still himself. Xander threw Giles a questioning look.

"Moonrise isn't until 9:15 pm, so it's quite possible that the change won't happen until then. Giles handed a rifle over to Xander, who took it with some confusion.

"It's loaded with a tranquilizer dart, in case something happens."

Xander nodded and pulled up a chair so he could sit outside the cage and talk with Oz while Giles went to get some sleep. He leaned the rifle up beside the closest table and sat.

"Hey."

"Hey."

Xander was beginning to think there was a running gag there somewhere.

"How are you holding up?"

Oz just shrugged. "I don't think I've fully processed it all yet." The silence stretched on for a bit. "I don't suppose you've talked with Willow today."

"Some."

More silence.

"She's worried for you."

A smile flitted briefly across Oz's face, and then his current reality wiped it away.

"Oz," Xander started, but couldn't go on. Just how do you tell your best friends boyfriend that you may end up killing him because instead of just being a normal werewolf, which of course, would be bad enough, he might actually be possessed by a shape shifting alien cell that would take him over and use his body in an attempt to rule the world.

Answer to that question, you didn't, or at least you didn't without knowing for sure that the above was true.

Thankfully, Willow came in right then, her body practically vibrating with the need to talk with Oz and Xander quietly withdrew to the upper stacks to give them some privacy.

He gave them a good twenty minutes before coming back down. From their facial expressions, whatever they had said to each other, it was of the good.

"So you guys worked things out?"

Oz gave him a nod as did Willow, somehow putting her whole body into the motion.

Xander looked at his watch. "I could go get lost for another half hour or so, if you'd like the privacy."

Oz and Willow looked at each other, but shook their heads. "We'll do the privacy thing once I'm not in danger of turning into a slathering beast."

"Good plan."

The sound of a rifle bolt shooting home pulled their attention to the library doors. A sandy haired man wearing a necklace of fangs stood there, covering the three of them with a rifle.

"Now, don't anybody go leaving… on any account."

* * *

Of course, once Jack had pulled up the relevant files the rift chose that moment to deposit something that would not win friends, but did influence people to kill theirs. He and the rest of Torchwood Three spent the rest of the day and a serious chunk of the night taking care of the problem. It was a good 20 hours before he was able to get back to the files.

1973. What had happened in 1973?

Well, Pink Floyd put out 'Dark Side of the Moon', because he remembered listening to it; in fact, you pretty much couldn't get away from it at the time. Watergate was going on. The Getty kidnapping. An Israeli fighter aircraft shot down a Libyan Airlines jet, killing over a hundred people. A lot of rockets and satellites got flung into space that year, which had kept Torchwood busy watching the skies and on a lighter note, Secretariat won the Triple Crown and the Marlboro Cup, something he knew about ahead of time, so he didn't allow himself to bet on it.

Okay, so that's what had been happening. He also thought that that year had been heavy on shape shifters. Torchwood Three alone had dealt with at least a half a dozen of them that year. However, on which one had he been lead?

Everyone in the hub had finally headed home after an exhausting day, allowing Jack enough privacy to open and read the file. When he did, he let out a sigh of exasperation at himself and shook his head.

Oh, right, that shape shifter.

* * *

In 1973, a bear attack was reported just after dark at a multi-day outdoor rock concert. That might not have been a completely strange thing in any other country, however other than the ones kept in zoos and circuses, there were no bears in Great Britain.

No bears had been reported missing and the police were working on the assumption that it was an illegal pet or part of a private collection and the owners weren't reporting it in an attempt to avoid legal problems.

The head of Torchwood Three at the time had been very, very annoyed with Jack, although in his defence; could he really be blamed for losing that last alien? It wasn't as if he had known that that species gained strength and power through sex and he'd..., well really, it wasn't his fault. Besides, it wasn't as if they were violent or anything, in fact they were rather shy, which was probably why they didn't usually tend to be very strong or powerful. His fault or not, she'd been so annoyed with him that she'd sent him to the music festival. The music festival with the insects and the rain and the mud, just so he could run around in circles trying to come up with something that wasn't a wild goose chase or a snipe hunt.

At the time, the fact that the attack had taken place on the night before the full moon hadn't meant anything to him. Even if it had been on the full moon, he wouldn't have thought anything of it.

Of course, that night was the night of the full moon.

The concert did at least sport some good music, which held Jack's attention most of the day and into the night. That was why noticing one lone concertgoer wander off into the tree line had been pure luck.

Well, okay, so the luck had more to do with the fact that the guy was unmistakably good looking and he had been holding Jack's attention for the last hour. Jack following him had been more about seeing if he couldn't get something started with the young man, rather than him having any suspicions about his activities.

Jack hadn't gotten very far into the woods before a roar and the sound of something heavy crashing through the brush had him climbing the nearest tree. He wasn't particularly interested in experiencing death by being mauled and partially eaten, again.

Of course, it turned out to be a North American Black Bear. They climb trees all the time and 500 lbs of hungry, fur-covered muscle that he could barely see in the dark was climbing his.

Jack had ended up hanging upside down on a branch to zap the thing with his stun gun. Although he suspected that it was the subsequent fall that knocked it unconscious, rather than the charge.

Once he made it back down to the ground, he used the restraints he had brought. Restraints that could react to someone shape shifting and continually readjust to keep them bound. Then he sat down on the ground beside it and waited for it to wake up.

Morning came first.

The bear's wuffling and growling pulled Jack out of a light doze and he watched as the creature shrank. Muscles rearranged themselves and the fur faded away until he became the young man that Jack had followed into the woods at the start of the night.

The very naked young man.

Jack was still admiring him when he woke up.

He was rather out of it, until he realized that he was bound. Then he was fully awake.

And terrified.

He struggled with the restraints frantically and Jack thought he might have to zap him again, before he hurt himself.

"Hey!"

The man, or perhaps kid, Jack had the suspicion that he wasn't even 20 yet, froze when Jack yelled at him. He focused on the immortal with equal parts terror and disgust.

"If you're expecting to skin me tomorrow night when I change, you are crap out of luck. I may not be able to control it on the full moon, but I don't change the night before or after unless I want to." Jack catalogued the kid's accent as American, probably from the West Coast.

"Well, that's good to know. As for skinning you…" He looked him over again. "That would be a ridiculous waste." The guy stared at him, confused for a moment before he realized how Jack was looking at him. Mortified, he tried to scrunch himself into a little ball. Jack sighed before taking off his coat, draping it over the young man so he'd be covered. "Mind telling me why, if you can control it, that you wanted to change the other night. You did kind of give yourself away."

The kid looked embarrassed and annoyed. "I got angry, okay. Concerts like this, they can be bad for that. Too much alcohol and too many drugs mixed with too many assholes. I checked around after if happened. I didn't hurt anyone."

"That's only because the guy climbed into a VW bus and you redecorated the outside of it for him. The only reason you weren't ID'd as the attacker was because he was so stoned that the police didn't even bother to take his statement. If there hadn't been other eyewitness the attack might not have been reported at all."

"You're not a regular hunter, are you?"

"No, but I wouldn't get your hopes up, because the type I am is likely worse."

"What are you going to do with me?"

"Haul you in, study you and then... well, it isn't really up to me."

"Study me?"

"Yeah..., what planet are you from, anyway?"

The guy looked at Jack like he'd completely lost it.

"Uh, Earth?"

In dribs and drabs, Jack got the story out of him about how he'd been attacked by a bear one night while he was camping. A bear that he'd managed to kill, only to have it turn into a human once it was dead.

Injured in the confrontation, he'd managed to stagger out of the woods a day later and report being attacked by a naked crazy man. Given the injuries he'd sustained and the fact that the guy was a known eccentric, no one had questioned what had happened.

He went home and tried to continue with his life as normal. 28 days after the attack, he woke up naked beside the riverbank that ran through the town he lived in, the taste of berries and blood in his mouth.

He'd been lucky; the only thing that had died that night had been a farmer's cow.

He'd locked himself up the basement of a condemned house for the next three nights, the last of those being one where he didn't change. A look at a calendar confirmed that the memory loss nights occurred the night before, of and after the full moon.

It didn't take a genius to figure out what was going on. Worried that he'd end up hurting friends or family, he left home a few days later. He started traveling, determined to find some kind of a cure.

"And I did. It's still not perfect, but I'm getting there."

"A cure, for being a shape shifter?"

"No, for being an uncontrolled shape shifter."

He'd found part of the cure in a small town in Alaska, from a man with similar problems. He'd taught him what he knew, and then pointed him in the direction of where he might learn more.

"Which is why I'm in England, travelling the hippie trail. It's the only way I can afford to get to where I need to be."

"And you think when you get there; you'll be able to learn to control this?"

The kid nodded. "Yeah, the guy who taught me, he learned it there and he's been able to control it for the last 30 years."

Jack, who by this time was sitting up against a tree, thumped the back of his head against it. "My boss is going to kill me."

"Why."

"For losing you."

Truth was, Jack had 'lost' a lot of aliens during his time at Torchwood. Even more so since he'd gotten a kick to his conscience sometime during the mid 60s. The only reason it hadn't been noticed was that Jack often went after the really dangerous aliens, and those he would always do his best to bring in or eliminate if necessary. For someone like this kid however…

Jack's reporting of the incident had mostly avoided being fictional by being selective. Torchwood knew there was a shape shifter involved. They knew it was affected by the moon. They knew it took the form of a bear and they were lead to believe that a glitch with the restraints caused a failure to the system that would have adjusted the size of them when he had shifted from animal to human, allowing him to escape. Jack's description of its human form was vague and centred on most of its body below the neck. His boss yelled at him about, but accepted as par for the course where Jack Harkness was involved. Just in case, Jack did keep an ear out for reports of bear attacks, especially ones in strange places, but came across nothing that didn't seem like a natural bear attack.

He'd long hoped that the kid had found what he was looking for. Now he hoped he could find the kid. If he had learned to control it, then maybe it was something he could teach to someone else.

* * *

Xander sidled sideways, putting himself between Willow and the hunter. Willow herself was already standing in front of Oz.

"You must be Cain," he said.

The hunter smiled. "Well, I see that that little girls been spreading tales of my prowess to other members of the bleeding hearts club." He shook his head. "I knew if there was a chance she'd found out who the werewolf was she'd try something like this." He nodded towards the book cage. "Just how long do you think you can keep everyone safe by locking him up? He'll find a way to get out eventually, they always do. And then someone will get killed. So I suggest you just stand aside and let me do what needs to be done."

Xander shook his head. "There is no way we are going to let you do anything to him. We will not trade his life to stop something that may never happen.

Cain gave a quick snort of laughter, raised his rifle and pointed it at Xander. "Don't see how you're going to stop me."

"Pretty much by not moving or letting you by."

"No!" Oz yelled from the cage. "Xander, he's right, it's not worth it, I'm not worth it. Not if it gets you and Willow hurt."

Xander was about to say something rude and contrary to that when Willow spoke up.

"He's right Xander, you should step aside."

Xander froze, near terrified because he knew that Willow was up to something. He didn't know what, but he knew he wouldn't be able to stop her from doing it. He could practically hear 'resolve face' in her voice.

He stepped aside.

Cain smirked at him as he did. "Well, it's good to know that all the women here aren't as stupid as the blonde from last..."

Pffffft.

Cain looked down at the tranquilizer dart that suddenly sprouted from his chest. He looked back up at Willow in shock. "But, you're a girl," he said before he crashed unconscious to the floor.

Xander looked over at Willow, who stood there with Giles' tranq rifle in her hands and fire in her eyes. "Darn tootin' I'm a girl."

Oz looked at her from the book cage, all of his emotions for one rare instant easily seen as they crossed his face. "That's my Willow." Then he made a pained gasping noise and hunched over. Xander looked at his watch. Yep, 9:15 pm, moonrise.

* * *

Xander and Willow considered a few things they could do with Cain, or rather to him. Eventually they went and woke Giles up and called Buffy in, as the two of them would probably be more effective at running the guy out of town. Giles had checked the hunter over, a little worried because the tranq in the rifle was designed to take down a werewolf and the dose might be enough to be fatal to a human.

While Xander didn't think he would lose any sleep over it if Cain did end up getting dead, he would have been horrified if Willow had to live with the knowledge that she had killed a man, no matter what the circumstances were.

Giles briefly considered dragging Cain off to the hospital, but decided against it, as his breathing and pulse were both good. He had Buffy dump him on the couch in the office and kept an eye on him in case he suddenly became worse, or woke up.

The hunter slept the rest of the night through, waking shortly after dawn. Opening his eyes to find a very pissed off blonde standing over him, he found himself wishing that he'd stayed asleep. He snorted and pushed away his unease. Sure, the girl looked like she'd been waiting all night just to take him on, but if she thought she was even the slightest bit intimidating, well…

* * *

Nope, not intimidated. He just recognized that that leaving after Buffy casually turned his high powered, carbon steel rifle into something that resembled modern art was a good idea. Not even bothering to snort at his own bullshit, Cain packing up his van, the last few days jumbling around in his head like a tumble dryer on speed. "Damn crazy town."

"Yeah, it is."

He turned to see the dark haired kid who'd stood between him and the werewolf the night before.

"What, making sure I really leave?"

The kid just gave a 'no comment' shrug and looked over the equipment that still needed to be packed. Cain tossed another bag into the van and then turned back to the kid.

"Is there something I can help you with, or do you just like standing there?"

The question was of course, sarcastic; however, the kid smiled like he'd just won a prize.

"Actually, now that you mention it, yeah." He looked at the teeth necklace that Cain was wearing. "You've killed a lot of werewolves, right?"

"Yeah, what of it?"

"Have you ever known any of them to react to mistletoe?"

"Mistletoe? Mistletoe is an old folk remedy for warding off werewolves, but I don't..."

"What?"

"I did hear of a hunter who used it once, well twice, but it only worked the first time."

"Where was he hunting, the first time?"

Cain thought hard for a moment. "Scotland, I think, somewhere British anyway."

It took everything Xander had to not to react to that.

"And the second time?"

"Somewhere up north, Alaska, maybe?" Cain shrugged, "The only reason I know about the second time is because the guy worked with a partner. He told me that the first time the other hunter used it the werewolf wouldn't get anywhere near him. The second time, with a different werewolf of course, it didn't even seem to notice. It ate the guy's spleen out before he could even go for his weapon. The partner took the shifter down, but it was too late for his friend."

He threw one last bag into the van. "Now, as nice as it is to talk shop, I'm out of here. Oh, and don't expect me to come running to help when your pet starts ripping people's throats out."

Xander didn't even bother to legitimize that with a return statement. He turned and headed back to his vehicle, wondering where he could get some mistletoe ten months before Christmas.

* * *

A day later, after everyone had finally gotten a decent night's sleep, all four of them were sitting in the student lounge; although Willow and Oz had their heads together and mentally weren't in the room at all.

Xander was chatting with Buffy about nothing in particular when he noticed Larry heading towards them. He had to smile when he saw the jock transformed into a gentleman when he stopped and pick up a girl's books.

He excused himself from Buffy and went over to talk with Larry.

"Hey, Xander, about what you did, I owe you."

"It was really nothing."

"It was a lot more than nothing."

Buffy chose then to wander over to them.

"Anyway, thanks." He clapped Xander on the shoulder and headed off.

"That was weird." Buffy said as she came up beside Xander.

Xander looked at her, confused. "What was?"

"He didn't try to look up my dress."

Xander looked her over and smiled, "Yeah, you're right, that is weird."

Buffy gave him a little punch on the shoulder.

"Oww, watch it with the Slayer strength there."

Buffy just snorted at him. "Wuss."

Willow and Oz smiled at them as they passed by, on their way outside. Xander and Buffy both smirked as they noticed the two of them were holding hands.

"Well, I've got to go check in with Giles. I'll see you guys later."

Xander gave her a wave and then looked around the lounge. He was beginning to think that he couldn't keep his secrets much longer, at least not from his friends. He didn't think he could spill it all at once either, although he wasn't sure if that was him, or Jack's influence, as the other immortal liked to play things close to his vest when he could.

He sighed. What he really needed someone he could talk to, someone he could be with, in more than just a friend sort of way. He suspected that if Larry wasn't so thankful to him for getting him to talk, that he would have asked him if he wanted to grab a coffee sometime. Because, yeah, the guy was cute and he'd like to get to know this new version of Larry. He shook his head at the thought. Given the circles they ran in that would be like him going out with Cordelia. In other words, it was never going to happen.


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Torchwood belong to their perspective owners; I am not one of them. I'm just borrowing them for entertainment purposes and no money shall be made from this entertainment.

Warning: There will be smut, there will be slash (hey, it's Torchwood) and there will swearing and violence.

Blue Coats and Guarding the Rifts

By Colleen

Chapter 8

_I wouldn't mind dying - it's the business of having to stay dead that scares the shit out of me._

_**~R. Geis**_

Valentine's day, sure, there was all that chocolate, but when you didn't have a significant other to give or get it from it... No, there was still chocolate and that was never bad, it just would have been nice to taste it on someone else's lips.

Xander shook his head. All this brooding just because he'd overheard Amy and the girls talking about the Valentine's Day Dance at the Bronze. It had been rather odd to realize that of the three of them only Willow had ended up with a date. And he didn't think very highly of his chances for convincing her and Oz to reconsider that threesome. He did wish he could talk Buffy around to at least a twosome, but given the state of her heart, he figured he'd have better luck asking Giles to the dance.

Hmm.

Xander stomped on that idea before it could mutate any further and looked around at his classmates as they lined up in front of the teacher to hand in their papers. By the time he had zeroed in on Amy and was wondering if she had a date for the party, he got to witness her hand in nonexistent homework and be thanked for it.

When he handed in his real work, he couldn't even get that much out of the teacher.

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Xander mentioned the incident with Amy to the girls and decided to have a word with her. At about the same time, he and Willow got to witness a very uncomfortable scene between Giles and Miss Calendar and Buffy. A morgue was warmer than the look the Slayer threw the woman she believed had played a large part in the loss of Angel's soul. Xander could understand that completely, but he also cringed a little as he watched as Giles seemed to die a little as he walked away from the gypsy.

Xander did track down Amy after school and got her to admit to using witchcraft. He asked her, practically begged her in fact, to talk with Giles about it. He understood that ignoring an ability like that was almost impossible, but anything she had already learned had been from her mother's old books and the lady had been a psycho. Giles would hopefully be able to point her in a better, safer direction and with luck might know someone who could help train the young witch.

Amy agreed, although Xander would be checking in with Giles about in a few days to make sure she went through with it.

And on a more depressing note, Amy already had a date.

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Xander pulled up to the shooting range, parked in the lot and just sat for a moment, not quite ready to get out of the SUV. He shook his head and sighed. Here it was, Valentine's Day Night. Willow was off at the Bronze, watching Oz play and hoping for some smoochies. Buffy was hanging out with her mom for a night of chick flicks and junk food, and he was about to go put a hundred rounds or so through several paper targets.

It really didn't make any sense, here he was, a young man with the memories of a man who had wooed more people than Casanova and he was dateless on Valentine's.

He got out of the vehicle, pulling the great coat around him a little tighter when the air outside of the car reminded him that it was only February and the nights were still a little chilly. He walked around to the back of the SUV to retrieve his gun case.

"You know, I was planning on doing something special to Buffy for Valentine's, and then I thought, this would be so much better."

Startled Xander turned in time to have Angel backhand him across the face, sending him flying across three parking spaces. He landed hard and gasped as he tried to regain the breath that had been knocked out of him. As Angel ambled over to him, he placed fumbling for the stun gun holstered on his belt at slightly more important than the breathing. It had just cleared the holster when Angel grabbed that hand and squeezed, while using the other one to haul Xander upright, using the great coat as a hand hold.

Xander grit his teeth and held on, attempting to distract the vampire by kneeing him where it counts.

As distractions go, it was less than stellar.

Angel gave Xander's hand a twist and the teen screamed as he felt bones snap. He dropped the stun gun, his hand would no longer capable of accepting the information his brain was sending it.

Angel pulled the struggling young man across the lot and slammed him up against the side of the SUV. He moved his hand into Xander's hair and used it to pull his head to the side, exposing his neck. Angel took a deep breath, savouring the moment and then looked at Xander with surprise. "Damn, do you ever smell good."

Xander swore and Angel just laughed at him before taking another deep breath. "Really good." He licked a line up Xander's throat from his collarbone to his chin, enjoying the boy's startled intake of breath.

"If you're planning on doing something other than killing me, then at least buy me a drink first. Otherwise, get it over with." Xander said through clenched teeth.

"Mmm." Angelus briefly considered that raped and dead might make a better present than just dead, but in a perverse sort of way, he didn't want Buffy to think he was sleeping around on her.

"Well, if you insist."

Xander attempted to yank himself out of Angelus' grip, but the vampire just chuckled at the try and wrenched Xander's head even further over before sinking his teeth into his throat.

Xander inhaled sharply as his entire body seized in place. Angel moved in a little closer, loosening the grip he had on Xander's hair slightly as he ran his other arm around to Xander's back and pulled the rest of him in tighter. Xander moaned and, to his horror, found the answer to an old, unasked question of his.

Why was it that almost no one ever struggle once they'd been bitten and were being drained?

In truth, he'd assumed that the shock and pain simple froze them in place. In practice, he was horrified to find that the experience felt so good that you might gladly let them drain you, just as long as they didn't stop.

While he would be totally mortified by the fact later, Xander tiled his head back, giving Angel better access to his throat. He gasped as the vampire used the slight change in position to slide his fangs in even deeper and moaned again as Angelus pulled the blood from his body in faster and deeper draughts.

Silently he cursed both Angel and himself as he felt his consciousness start to fade away. He grabbed at Angel's shirt with his good hand, twisting the fabric hard enough that it began to give at its seams. While his grip on the cloth was partially an attempt to stay upright, it was even more a desire to somehow reach into the vampires chest and squeeze at his heart until he was dust. Xander's last thought as it all went black was that if he managed to come back to life again, without being a vampire, then he was going to finally test out the explosive rounds that Jack had sent him, and Angelus was definitely the volunteer.

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Angel had used the boy's SUV to drive over to Buffy's place; he hoisted the body out of the back of the vehicle and carried it over to the house, laying it out on the porch. He placed a single red rose in Xander's hand and pinned a piece of paper to his coat, with the words. 'I thought this showed more thought than just getting you a dozen roses' on it. Then he rang the doorbell and stepped back into the shadows to watch the show.

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When the doorbell rang, Buffy, already stuffed with enough junk food to qualify as processed, hauled herself up off the couch and waddled to the door. She opened it, shivering slightly in the cool air and when she didn't see anyone standing there, she looked down.

"Xander? What do you think you're doing?" She said, a smile in her voice and on her lips.

Xander didn't move and the smile slid away from her face.

"Xander, this isn't funny. Please."

Any moment now, he'd jump up and scare her. He had to. Xander couldn't actually be still that long.

That's when she realized that he wasn't breathing.

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Xander please, no." She fell to her knees beside him, reaching for his neck, searching for a pulse, there had to be a pulse.

There wasn't, and her hand came away from his throat bloody.

"Nooooooooooooooooo."

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In the shadows, Angelus' smile was beatific as he watched the Slayer come apart in grief and horror and loss. He turned and started to walk away as he heard Joyce's voice call out to her daughter in worry.

It would get crowded here soon, police and what not and while watching her go into shock would have been fun, right now, it was enough to know how much she appreciated his gift to her.

He'd have to start planning what to get her for Easter, after all, this one would be hard to top.

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Buffy was, for one of the few times in her life, too far gone in emotional pain to try and physically stop her mother from coming outside. In fact, she didn't think she could even stand. She did manage to try to stop her with her voice. "Mom," she croaked out, "Don't ..." Which was as far as she got when Xander's eyes snapped open and he took a gasping breath, his hands scrabbling like he was trying to fend something off.

Buffy found that her legs worked just fine after all and she backed away from Xander, shaking her head. "No please, not that."

For his part, Xander was finding out that Jack's memories of what it was like to come back from bleeding to death, was nothing like real time experiencing his body replacing its entire volume of blood in one go. It hurt so much that he didn't even notice as the bones in his hand snapped back into place and healed at the same time that the wounds in his neck closed over like they'd never been there.

He had just sat up and was starting to realize where he was, when Joyce made it to the doorway.

"Buffy?"

Buffy quickly wiped her tears away, hoping her mother hadn't seen them. "Mom." Her voice was a bad squeak and she cleared it and tried again. "Mom, it's alright, I'll be back in in a moment."

Xander stood up then and Buffy moved in front of her mother and attempted to fall into a defensive stance without looking like she was.

Joyce looked from her daughter to the young man standing on her porch. "Xander, not that I'm not glad to see you, but why do you have a note pinned to your coat?"

Xander looked down at himself, slightly startled. He pulled the note off and read it, then balled it up in disgust and shoved it into a pocket. "It's nothing, I'm afraid the school jocks have taken it upon themselves to kidnap anyone they noticed was dateless and deliver them..., well."

Joyce shook her head, "To anyone else that was dateless." She looked at her daughter with a raised eyebrow. "Maybe you two should consider fixing that."

Xander knew there was a reason that he loved Buffy's mom.

"Yeah, just let me get my coat and we'll... go somewhere," Buffy said as she backed her mother into the house.

Joyce shivered as she noticed how cool the night actually was. "Come inside Xander, it's too cold to wait out here for Buffy."

Buffy froze and Xander, who'd just come back from the dead and was not unreasonably a little slow on the uptake, finally put all the pieces together.

Buffy thought he was a vampire.

Oh, this was going to hurt and that was just the explanation, being staked would probably be easier.

He shoved his hands into the great coats pockets and spread it out a little in a shrugging motion. "It's alright Mrs. Summers, I'm dressed for it. I'll wait out here."

Before she could argue with him, Buffy manoeuvred her Mom the rest of the way into the house and closed the door. Xander smiled for a brief moment, before his eyes narrowed and he looked over the neighbourhood, suspecting that Angelus might still be there, watching the show.

He didn't see the vampire, but he did see his SUV parked across the street. A quick check of his pockets showed that he still had his wallet and cell phone, but not his keys. Angel probably hadn't seen any reason to search him further once he'd found them. He crossed the street to the vehicle and found that the doors to the SUV were unlocked. He checked the back and the gun case was thankfully still there, minus his stun gun of course, which was probably back at the shooting range parking lot. He went back to the front seats of the SUV and searched there again, finally coming to an annoying conclusion.

"Bastard, he left the car, but took my keys."

"Xander?"

Xander carefully closed the driver's side door of the SUV. "Hey Buff." He turned to look at her just as carefully.

She had gone and gotten her coat; she had also gone and gotten a stake.

"There's a joke there, about stakes and being happy to see me, but I don't think I'll bother."

"Oh, Xander, I am so sorry."

She started to move and Xander put both of his hands up and out to stop her. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, can we please not do this Buffy?"

Buffy shook her head, tears dripping down her face again.

"Please, you'll stab me with the stake, which I happen to know, at least second hand, will hurt like hell. Then I'll fall down dead and you'll be even more depressed than you are right now."

She shook her head again. "I'm sorry."

Xander backed up what little space he could. "Buffy, I'm not a vampire. I have a pulse, I have a heartbeat, I am breathing and," he yanked the SUV's side mirror around and waived his hand in front of it, "I have a refection."

Buffy blinked in shock as she saw a second hand in the mirror. "But..." She blinked a few more times and then pulled herself together, going almost icy. "You were dead Xander. I know dead and you were it."

"Yeah, I suppose I was."

Buffy now looked like she wanted to stake Xander on principle alone, and as much as it gave him a warm feeling to know that she cared enough to be devastated by his death, he was happier to see her like this as he much preferred strong Buffy to hurt Buffy.

"Why don't we take a walk, I need to go home and get the spare set of keys for this thing anyway." He said, indicating the SUV with his head.

"Okay," Buffy said, her voice was merely cautious, but her eyes were narrowed and full of steel and she didn't put the stake away.

Xander, under Buffy's watchful eye grabbed the gun case out of the back of the vehicle before locking the doors, as he didn't want to leave it there, even with the SUV locked down.

Then they walked.

They'd gone about a quarter of the way when Buffy finally lost her patience. "Xander, unless you want to be sporting a wooden stake between your ribs as a new fashion statement, you'll spill, now."

"I will. I'm just trying to figure out how to go about it."

"Start with being alive. Not that I'm not glad that you are, but how?"

Xander sighed and went for broke. "I can't die."

Buffy froze in place and Xander stopped and looked back at her, waiting for her mind to catch up again.

"You can't die?"

"Well, to be perfectly honest I can die, I just can't stay dead."

Buffy took a half a step back from him. "What are you?"

He shrugged, "I don't know."

"How can you not know?"

He shrugged again.

She stalked up to him and they stood there, nose to nose. "How long, I mean, were you born this way, or what?" What was left unsaid, was how long have you been lying to me?

He shook his head. "No, no I wasn't born this way and as for how long..." He took a deep breath. "Since Halloween."

"Halloween? The spell, the costume spell?"

He nodded.

She gave him a push. "How and why didn't you tell us?"

"Because... Because at first, I wasn't sure, and then when I was, I hoped it was just temporary. But, I don't think it is."

"Yeah, well, we're going to see about that."

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It'd been awhile since Spike had been as amused as he was now.

Angel had come in, satisfaction over whatever his Valentine's Day gift to the Slayer had been written across his face and obviously wanting to share the details with them. Drusilla had taken one look at him and had actually hissed at him, before locking herself in her room. Angelus was at this moment knocking at the door and trying to get her to come out.

"You could just kick the thing down, you know?"

Angel snarled at him and Spike just put his hands up in surrender and backed the wheelchair up a little bit. Angel turned back to the door and gave it a light kick, one that made it rattle in its housing. "Women."

Drusilla opened the door suddenly, glared at Angel, smiled at Spike and then slammed the door shut again.

Angel raised his foot to kick it in, and then made a wave of dismissal at it and stalked off. Spike watched him go, then wheeled himself over to the door and quietly knocked at it. "Dru?"

Dru opened the door, a sad look on her face. "He just doesn't understand, he don't. He was supposed to play with the Slayer. He was supposed to hurt her and hurt her. It would have been such a lovely pressie."

"From the look on his face when he came in, I'd say he did just that luv."

She shook her head and started to close the door again. "He did it wrong."

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Xander stored the gun case at home, found the spare keys and then walked with Buffy back to her place. On the walk over Buffy made him promise to explain everything the next day in the presence of Giles and the rest of the gang. He'd agreed, with fingers slightly crossed, because he'd need to talk some things over with Jack first. He didn't want to lie to his friends, but he would respect the Captain's wishes in the matter as much as he could.

The walk back was done in silence and not a comfortable one either.

Xander saw Buffy back to her door, but wasn't surprised when she followed him to the SUV. As he got in and started it, he realized there was something he did have to say to her, that he had been avoiding the entire walk back. Given what it was, the pervious silence didn't seem as uncomfortable as it had been.

"Buffy." He rolled down the window to talk to her.

"Yeah?"

"You have to know, because, I know you love Angel and I'm sorry, but if Angelus ever comes near me again, I will kill him, plain and simple." He popped the SUV into gear and drove away before she could say anything, but a look back at her in the rear view mirror almost broke his heart.

Never, ever had he seen her look so defeated. And even if Angelus was ultimately to blame, he hated that he was the one to put that look there, no matter how much it had needed to be said.

And no matter how true it was as well, because he was never letting that thing touch him again.

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He ended up driving back to the shooting range, in search of his stun gun. When he got there, he couldn't say he was surprised to find that it wasn't where he'd dropped it. He checked at the range just in case, but no one had turned it in.

He just hoped Angelus hadn't made off with it. It would be far too easy for him to use it on Buffy.

He looked around the near empty parking lot and grimaced. Jack was going to kill him for losing it, because... He hit himself upside the head. Being temporarily dead must make him stupider or something. All of his weapons were lo-jacked, except for the Enfield, and could be traced using the Satellite link up in his phone.

And if Angel did take it, it would lead them right to him.

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Xander stared at the suburban home in front of him and then back down at his phone. This was where his stun gun was, but it didn't look like the lair of an evil vampire, more like a disturbed housewife, with cookies.

"What the hell." He said with a shrug as he walked up to the door and rang the bell. The housewife theory was played out as one answered the door.

"Uh, hi."

"Hello," the forty something woman said, looking at him in confusion. "Are you one of Jonathan's friends?"

Xander's eyes shot sideways to the name on the houses mailbox.

Levinson. What would Jonathan Levinson be doing near a shooting range?

"Uh, yeah, I am, from school. Is he in?"

The lady, probably Jonathan's mother stepped back and waived him inside, showing that at least subconsciously she had a better grasp of what went on in Sunnydale after dark than Buffy's mom did.

Once he was inside, she showed him to the basement steps. "He's downstairs, in the rec room."

"Thanks."

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Xander hadn't exactly been trying to be stealthy as he went down the stairs to the Levinson's rec room, but Jonathan was so involved with something he didn't hear him come down or walk up behind him.

Xander winced as he saw what held Jonathan's fascination. His stun gun lay in several pieces on the table in front of Jonathan and as Xander watched, he disconnected the power source, which, Xander was almost amused to note, had been keeping the lo-jack powered. A few minutes later and Xander would never have been able to trace the gun here.

"You know, it's really impolite to take apart other people's things without permission. Believe me, I learned that lesson when I was 5, but then, Willow can be a very good teacher."

Jonathan whirled around, tools dropping from his hands. "Don't hit me please; I didn't know it was yours."

Xander toned down the 'I'm going to rip your spleen out' look he hadn't realised his face was sporting and shook his head at the shorter teen. "You had to know it belonged to someone." He let Jonathan cringe for a moment longer before sighing. "I'm not going to hit you, I'm just kind of annoyed that you wrecked my stu... uh, taser."

Jonathan turned around to look at the pieces of the gun. "It's a taser? But, it isn't like the ones I've seen before."

Xander gave a quiet cough. "It's British. I have a cousin who lives over there. He sent it to me when he realized how dangerous Sunnydale is at times. He is going to be very angry at me for the state it's in now."

Jonathan did at least manage to look embarrassed about that. "Sorry, I was just curious about it, but I can put it back together. I wouldn't have taken it apart in the first place if I couldn't."

Xander gestured at the pieces. "Please."

Xander watched as the other teen retrieve his tools and started to piece the gun back together, he had to ask. "Hey Jonathon, don't get me wrong, but you don't seem the type to hang out at shooting ranges."

"Huh?"

Xander gestured to the stun gun that was slowly but surely returning to its original condition. "I'm pretty sure that I dropped that out at the Sunnydale Shooting Range."

"Oh, yeah." Jonathan just shrugged. "I've got an uncle, he's a Sergeant in the army. He was stationed at the base here for a couple of years. It's his opinion that Sunnydale is, well, whacked."

"Wouldn't disagree with him there."

Jonathan nodded.

"Anyway, he decided that I needed to learn some way to defend myself and figured guns were the best chance I had. Especially since I'm not..."

Xander frowned at him. "What."

"Well, I mean look at me, I'm not particularly athletic."

Xander gave Jonathan a serious look over and smiled. "Don't sell yourself short." He noticed Jonathan shift uncomfortably and tamped the smile on his face down to friendly interest from 'I'll shag you here and now if you're interested.'

He really needed to watch that. Jack threw out invitations like that all the time, but he was dealing with adults, not teenagers who were still trying to figure out where they fit when it came to the rest of the world.

"So, your uncle taught you to shoot?"

"Some," Jonathan said, relaxing again, "but he told me it was mostly a matter of practice, which he wants me to do. Since he's friends with the guy who owns the range, he left one of his guns with him and worked it out that I could come in and practice. I can order ammo for it through him as well."

Xander looked at him, confused once again and he would have asked the question that would clarify that confusion, but Jonathan noticed it and answered before he could ask.

"I'm still underage, so I can't actually own a gun."

"Ah." Xander thought he had better look over all the papers that had come with his arsenal, as he didn't know if Jack had gone over, around, or through that rule. It was also possible that he had simply ignored it all together.

Jonathan screwed that last piece of the gun back in and handed it over to Xander. "Here you go, good as new."

"Thanks." He looked it over, but decided to test it without Jonathan hanging over his shoulder. He stood to leave, but stopped and turned to look at Jonathan. "If you're interested, my cousin did give me a fairly good grounding in shooting. We could go to the range together and maybe exchange tips and techniques?"

Oh, what Jack could have done with that line.

Jonathan looked hopeful and yet despondent at the same time. "Really, because that would be great, but you don't have to, you know, because I know that hanging out with me isn't..."

Xander had a feeling that Jonathan was about to babble on further than was good for him and held up a hand to stop him. "Really, I'd like to. It would be nice to go shooting with someone I know."

"Well, okay... uh, when."

"Well, I usually go Monday nights for sure, after that it depends on what's happening during the week."

"Okay, so Monday?"

Xander nodded. "Great, I'll pick you up, say 7, 7:30?"

"7:30."

"I'll see you then," and with a wave he headed back up the stairs, said goodnight to Jonathan's mother and headed out. When he got back to the SUV, he decided to head home. It had been a long day and he'd died on top of that. He'd get some sleep, call Jack in the morning and worry about what he would tell everyone else then.


	9. Chapter 9

Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Torchwood belong to their perspective owners; I am not one of them. I'm just borrowing them for entertainment purposes and no money shall be made from it.

Blue Coats and Guarding the Rifts

by Colleen

Chapter 9 

_The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable. _

_**~Attributed to James A. Garfield**_

When Xander called the next morning, which in Cardiff was late afternoon, Jack was attempting to wrestle something with far too many legs and not enough eyes into a holding cell. The mobile's ring seemed to be making the creature even more aggressive so he answered it, and then asked Xander to hold on.

Xander listened with some amusement as Jack continued to wrestle with the alien.

"No, don't put your leg there, whoa, especially not there, not without flowers and chocolates at least. Now get, wait, no stop, don't, don't eat that I know where it's been and it wasn't pretty. Now get in there."

Jack closed the holding cell door and backed away, panting slightly. Of all the times for the sedative to wear off, it had to be now. He took a few more breaths before he remembered the phone.

"Hey Xander, what's up?"

"I'd be a fool to answer that."

Jack smirked, the boy was learning. "Something I can help you with then." Xander made a rude noise that seemed to consist mostly of consonants and then forged ahead with why he called without actually answering Jack's question.

Yep, definitely learning.

"Jack… a friend saw me die and then come back to life."

"Ahh, do you want me to send you some retcon?"

Xander was quiet for a moment while he digested the question. "No, no, I can't keep lying to them, not... I keep thinking of one of them getting killed trying to save me when whatever it was wouldn't have killed me… permanently. I need to tell them. Besides, Buffy wants to see if her Watcher can find a way to reverse what happened to me."

Jack had to mull that over. Just because they might be able to fix Xander didn't mean they could fix him, but they wouldn't know without trying.

"So, what do you want to tell them?"

"That's why I called. The friend already knows that Halloween had something to do with it, but she doesn't have all the details. They don't have to know that you still exist."

Jack took one more look in the holding cell to make sure the whatever it was had settled down before he started the walk up to the main part of the hub. "That might be difficult, since the reason you can't die is because I can't die. They would have to figure I was still around somewhere." He thought for a moment. "Is Willow included in this 'They'? Because she's smart, she'll put the pieces together eventually." He'd actually looked into everyone Xander hung with. Willow wasn't just smart; she was scary smart.

And he was still trying to figure out if he should be scared or heartened by the fact that someone had named the Slayer, Buffy.

"Yeah, she is, but I don't...oh."

"Oh, what?"

Xander winced slightly. "I forgot, I did tell Giles… uh, the Watcher, that you worked for Torchwood before WWII. He was trying to find a way to make your memories fade, but was never able to come up with anything."

Jack had just reached the staircase and groaned at the situation as he started to climb. "Well, crap."

"Sorry."

Jack paused as he reached the top step. "Tell them what you need to, to keep them safe Xander. Just know, if it becomes a problem I will come there and retcon everyone back to their junior year, the Watcher included. Got it?"

He heard Xander swallow over the line. "Got it."

Jack let out a sigh, he didn't like having to be the bad guy, even if he was good at it. "Maybe, if at all possible, you could try and keep Cousin Jack separate from Captain Harkness?"

"I'll try."

"And please, for the love of whatever higher power you believe in; don't mention time travel or the 51st century."

"Not a problem, this has got more than enough weirdness going on without adding that."

"Okay then, let me know how it goes."

Xander rang off and Jack went back to work, wondering if he was going to be cleaning up a mess in Sunnydale sooner than he'd hoped.

And on top of that, he still had a werebear to track down.

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Normally lunch was a time that Xander looked forward to and cherished. Today he'd suddenly found a new appreciation for all of his morning classes and he couldn't believe how quickly they flew by.

Lunchtime arrived and he found himself standing in front of the library doors. He swallowed nervously and walked in. He looked at everyone in the room and had to shake his head. They had all gotten out of class the same time he did, so how had they managed to get here before him to line themselves up at the table like a board of inquiry?

"Buffy, Willow, Oz, Cordelia, Giles." He said, nodding at each of them.

"Xander." That from Giles, who appeared to be speaking for the group.

He looked at everyone and couldn't help himself. "You may very well wonder why I have called all of you here today." He'd put his hands behind his back and had started to pace.

"Xander." Ah Giles, he always did know how to shut him down.

"Sorry."

Giles gestured to a chair and Xander took it and sat.

"From what Buffy has told me, the Halloween spell had more of an effect on you than you previously let on."

"Yeah. Where do you want me to start?"

"Why can't you die, or stay dead. Not that I'm complaining," Buffy said.

"I apparently can't die, because Captain Harkness can't die."

Willow piped up. "You make it sound like he's real, but that was a costume." She looked around at everyone uncertainty. "Wasn't it?"

Xander shook his head. "No, it was a uniform, belonging to a real person and I seemed to have become that person, right down to the cellular level." He looked at everyone. "Even though I still look like me, I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that my DNA has changed."

Like the 51st century pheromones hadn't given that away.

Everyone spoke, trying to ask a question at the same time and Giles loudly brought them back to order before asking his again.

"So who was Captain Harkness?"

Xander let out a breath. "Okay, Captain Harkness... and he stalled, because really, how do you explain Jack?"

"Xander."

"Sorry. Captain Harkness was a world traveller in the mid to late 1800s." Which was true as far as that went. "He'd teamed up with two other travelers and together the three of them tended to go from one sticky situation to another. Sort of like us here in Sunnydale, but they went looking for it instead of letting it come to them."

"Who were the other two travellers?"

"They..." He paused. "Their identities don't really have any impact on what you need to know, and there are some of the Captain's memories that I feel I have to respect."

They all took that in, not looking too happy about it, but Giles summed it up. "Alright for now, but if it should become important..."

"I'll tell you, I promise." He stopped, lost in thoughts that were not his own of the Doctor and Rose.

"Xander?"

He started. "Uh yeah. Eventually they ended up in a very bad situation, where they were defending a..." Well, he couldn't call it what it really was, not if he wanted to avoid the time travel thing. "A town from... I can't really describe them, not and make you understand just how completely horrible they were, and Giles, before you ask, I've never been able to find them in any of your books. Just accept that they would have left no one alive and they would have gone on to do it again and again and again." Xander rubbed his hands across his face. "Crap."

"Xander, what happened there?"

"Everybody died. The whole town and the Captain as well. One moment he was facing three of those things down, then there was darkness, and then he woke up to find the town folk dead, the creatures dead and his travelling companions gone."

Xander took a deep breath as he found himself blinking back tears. "He never found them again, and he didn't know it then, but that was the first time he died and came back."

"And he didn't know why?" Giles asked him.

Xander smiled, "No, he doesn't know why."

"Xander?"

"The Captain hadn't bothered to change his access codes at Torchwood since the 1920s. He tracked me down after I used them to get the rocket launcher."

"He's still mobile?" Cordelia asked, "I mean, he must be over a hundred by now."

"And lookin' good." He shook his head at the confusion on everyone's faces and wondered if he could have gotten away with saying Jack was dead.

Giles got it first, a mix of how could I be so stupid and shock on his face. "When you said he can't die, you meant that he's actually immortal, even to the point of not aging?"

Xander nodded. "Pretty much. The second time he died was in 1892 at Ellis Island. He got in an argument with some guy who shot him through the heart. Then he woke up. He's come back from being thrown from a cliff, stabbed by a bottle in a bar fight, trampled by horses, several deaths in WWI as well as what I have of his memories of WWII, which is just up to the start of the Blitz."

Giles was cleaning his glasses. Actually, now that Xander notice, he realized that the Watcher had been doing it for a while; he just hadn't been paying attention to the action.

"Okay," Buffy said, collecting their attentions back from wherever they had gone. "So this Captain Harker."

"Harkness." Xander corrected.

"Harkness. He got magic'd up and now he can't die. You were him on Halloween because of that spell, but it should have worn off, shouldn't it?" She directed the last of that towards Giles, who put his glasses back on and shrugged.

"I really don't know. The fact that the costume was not a costume, but a real uniform and caused Xander to become a real person may have made a difference to it. I would probably need to talk with Ethan about it, at length, before I could figure it out."

"But, it might not be permanent," she continued.

"It's why I didn't say anything. I hoped it would just wear off." Xander interjected.

Giles froze for a moment. "Xander, have you died some other times, besides last night?"

He winced, but nodded. "Yeah, I kind of fell off of a building while trying to avoid a vampire and shortly after the Captain tracked me down I got shot. Uh, not by the Captain," he said as he noticed everyone suddenly get very angry. "It was actually by a vampire." They all looked at him as if he was crazy and he sighed. "It was Drusilla, she went and broke Captain Harkness' neck and then shot me with his gun. I don't know why she did it that way, but since she is crazy that should probably count towards the reason."

"Oh God." Willow said, looking decidedly green overtop of her horror. "You've been dead, that's way more of a secret than... Oh."

"There are other secrets?" Buffy asked him, looking like she hoped it was something she could attack him with, if just to get away from the horror of the last few moments.

Xander rolled his eyes. "I've also recently discovered that I'm bi-sexual. Which I might add, is also the Captain's fault and why I was hoping that Giles would find a way to get him out of my head."

Willow looked at him surprised. "Oh, but your cousin?"

"Yeah, well I still went to him for advice, because I'd come to realize that it's not just memories, it's also how I'm wired now."

"Cousin?" Buffy asked.

Willow ended up answering, "Xander's cousin, who's, you know, also bi-sexual. He thought Xander and Oz and I were..." She turned beet red and looked like she wished she really hadn't said that.

"What?" Cordelia asked, looking between the three of them.

Xander felt a smirk on his face that was more Jack than him. "He thought we were a threesome. Which, you know, I'm still up for if you're ever interested."

"Xander!" Wow, he didn't think it was possible for Willow to get even redder and Cordelia looked like she'd mentally gone off somewhere fun. Buffy and Giles appeared shell-shocked and Oz… Looked like Oz.

"So, now that you know what's going on with me, can you fix me?"

Giles blinked, coming back to himself, sort of. "Ah, yes, well, I'm not sure, some research to do, I'll have to."

"Oh hell, I've turned you into Yoda."

Giles gave himself a shake. "Not quite that bad." He looked the young man in front of him over. "Xander, I have to ask. Most people would give a lot to be in your position. To potentially be immortal. Why would you consider it something that needs fixing?"

Xander looked down at the table and ran a finger along the grain of the wood. "I have Jack's memories from when he was born, up until September of 1940. In that time, he had already buried more friends, family and lovers than any 10 men should have had to." He looked carefully at everyone in the room. "If this doesn't go away, if it doesn't wear off, then one day I'll look around and find that I've buried all of you." He shook his head. "Being the one always left behind, the one who has to keep going because there is no way to stop it, ever. It's crap."

"Xander."

He held up his hands to cut Giles off. "I'm not saying I want to die anytime soon, because hey, I'm only 17, I've still got things to do. But how will I feel about it at 170?"

Giles nodded his understanding. "If there's a way to fix this, we will, I promise you."

"Thank you." He glanced at everyone again. "So, how long will everyone be angry at me?"

Buffy glared at him. "A while..." Then she rolled her eyes. "But we'll get over it."

Everyone nodded in agreement and Xander let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.

"So," Cordillia said, "Just to clarify, you'd date a guy now?"

Xander was sure that it was at least three minutes before he managed to stop laughing. And the nice thing was, even though it was probably a little manic, everyone else joined in as well.

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Spike had still been curious enough about what had set Dru off that the next night he actually bothered to go commiserate with Angel about the mercurial nature of women and stroked his ego enough that the other vampire told him in excruciating detail of Buffy's Valentine's Day present.

The blonde vampire had nearly bitten his tongue in half when he figured out who the present had been.

As he finished his tale, Angelus thought of something and fished into the pockets of his coat, pulling out a set of keys. "Forgot about these. Guess I should have taken the SUV instead of just leaving it there." Spike grimaced slightly as he saw a condescending grin split Angel's face. "At the very least it would have made a good wheelchair bus for you."

Spike's attempted smile looked more like rigor mortis setting in and Angel laughed and threw the set of keys down on a table before heading off to go see if a good day's sleep had helped Drusilla get over her snit or if he'd have to torture her out of it.

Spike glared after the other vampire as he left. Then he wheeled himself closer to the table and picked up the keys, to stare at them contemplatively.

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When Monday came, the idea of shooting things was welcomed wholeheartedly by Xander. The rest of the week had been harder than fighting demons. Miss Calendar had actually stomped into the library not long after their laughing jag and had dragged Giles into his office for what looked like a very uncomfortable conversation. Xander had heard from Willow later that Buffy had talked with Giles and told him that she knew he missed Miss Calendar, and that life was too short for that type of thing, even if she herself couldn't currently handle being near her. They must have talked again because the two of them were looking cautiously happy, the kind where you're walking around and suddenly discover the ground is made of eggshell and you had better step carefully.

Willow had alternated between being annoyed over the secrets and terrified of what she had learned was happening with Xander. Buffy, well Buffy's problems were well documented and obviously not going anywhere. Of all of them, only Cordelia and Oz seemed to be on an even keel, but that would only be if he trusted surfaces, and he didn't much anymore.

So Monday. Pick up Jonathan and shoot things. Well, shoot paper targets. Not the target that he really wanted to put holes in, but it would do until he had a certain vampire in his sights.

When he pulled up at the Levinson household, Jonathan was already outside waiting for him, his body practically vibrating. Xander rolled down a window and called out to him. Jonathan looked surprised, then came over to the vehicle and got in the passenger side. "Wow, sweet ride, your parents?"

Xander shook his head. "Cousin, he lets me use it when he's out of town, which tends to be a lot."

"Cool."

Xander had to smile. "Yeah, it is."

The trip didn't take very long (Sunnydale really wasn't all that big) and they made it into the building without any problems, although Xander was prepared to zap anything that came within ten feet of them.

It was going to be a while before he stopped looking over his shoulder, especially in that parking lot.

Xander signed them in while Jonathan got his gun and ammo from the guy behind the desk, who apparently wasn't the owner, but knew enough not to ask questions. Then they went and set up in their lane.

"Xander," Jonathan asked as Xander uncased and loaded his Enfield. "How are you managing to, you know, own a gun. I thought you were about the same age as me."

Xander nodded. "Yeah, I am, but there was a typo when my information was originally entered into the system." Jonathan looked confused. "Birth certificate, Social security, all of that sort of thing."

"What type of typo?" Jonathan paused and gave his head a shake. Too much alliteration for such a short sentence.

"They got the year wrong. As far as the system is concerned, I was actually 21 on my last birthday." Xander had finally gone through all the papers Jack had sent him to find his new ID and age. He wasn't sure if he should thank Jack for the sudden existence of that typo, or hit him over the head for it. Of course, in the long run, what was 4 years when he might have centuries?

"Wow, you could even leave home if you wanted to. Oh, and drink, at a bar."

Xander jerked slightly, as the thought hadn't occurred to him, not the drinking part, but the moving out part. He couldn't say he didn't find the thought interesting, but it wasn't viable, as he currently had no way to pay for room and board. Saving the world on a regular basis didn't leave much time for after school jobs.

"It's a nice thought." He said to Jonathan, so as not to leave him hanging, conversationally. He stepped back. "Okay, let's see you shoot."

They put in earplugs, put on the safety glasses and then Jonathan snapped into position and fired off the ten rounds in his clip. Xander stared at the gun, a Berretta 92f with some confusion.

"I thought the standard magazine for that gun was 15 rounds."

Jonathan shook his head. "This is California Xander; anything over 10 rounds is illegal. These use a modified magazine that won't allow more than 10."

Xander winced. He really should have checked up on that. While he suspected the explosive rounds were illegal (duh), it hadn't even occurred to him that the flechette gun with its up to 200 rounds might be even more illegal. "Right, forgot."

He traded places with Jonathan and took his turn firing at the target. His grouping was good, better than Jonathan's, but not by much. At this distance, Jack could have put all six shots through the same spot, and that was with the Webley, which had an even worse kick than the Enfield.

Xander broke the Enfield open, popped the cartridges out and reloaded using one of the speed loaders.

He had Jonathan step up again. "Okay, go into stance, but don't shoot yet."

Jonathan did as asked and Xander looked him over. "Jonathan, I apologise in advance, but this really is how my cousin taught me to shoot." He came up behind him, put a hand on the other boy's stomach and pulled Jonathan towards him until the shorter teen's back pressed up against Xander's front. He then ran his other hand down Jonathan's arm until they were both holding the gun. "Do you feel that?"

"Uh," Jonathan said, moments from freaking.

"The stance Jonathan, do you feel how I changed it?"

"Oh." Jonathan blinked a couple of times, like he was uploading or something, then he nodded. "Yeah, yeah I do."

"Okay, now fire."

Ten shots, all in the centre. The grouping much better, better even than Xander had pulled off previously.

"Hell yeah." Xander said, stepping back from Jonathan so he wouldn't continue freaking him out.

"Wow."

"Okay, you know what that feels, so help me correct my stance. I think I'm doing something I shouldn't and just haven't figured out what it is yet."

Jonathan nodded and once Xander was in stance, he looked him over, and then moved him slightly, gingerly even and without the full body contact Xander had used.

"Okay."

Xander put all six shots into the targets head, the last one was a little high, but it was still a better grouping than the previous attempt.

The rest of the hour they'd booked went like that, although Xander avoided doing the full body correction again, even if he hadn't meant anything serious by it. He could already tell that Jonathan wouldn't be interested if he had. If they were both a little older Xander might have flirted with him anyway, even if there wasn't any chance of being taken up on it, because, you never know. However, he knew just how uncomfortable that would have made him only a few months ago, so he stomped down on what was becoming more and more a natural reaction for him and less the reactions brought on by another man's memories.

He flirted with girls every chance he'd gotten before. Now he wanted to flirt with boys as well. But this was high school, and most of the boys weren't mature enough to not take it personally if they weren't interested that way. Come to think of it, some adults weren't either, but then, that's what bar fights were for.

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Xander was in the library the next day, discussing possible avenues of research Giles could take in looking to fix the Halloween spell, while Cordelia was there to see if any new disasters had sprung up over night. Buffy came in with the news that Angel had been in her room that night, while she'd been asleep. This brought up a need for someway to revoke the invitation he had to Buffy's house. Cordelia decided to freak out about the fact that Angel had been in her car, but Xander pointed out to her that vampires were only physically kept out of houses they didn't have invitations to, not automobiles.

"But that means any vampire could just get into my car."

Xander nodded. "And this is why you should keep your doors locked and drive over them when you have the chance."

"And if they're already in the car when I get in?"

Xander shrugged. "I don't know, although your basic cross and holy water might be a good idea."

The doors to the library open before Cordelia could reply and Xander was surprised to see who it was.

"Hey Jonathan, and pretty female student that I don't believe I've had the joy of meeting before."

Jonathan smiled a little and the girl actually blushed. Xander directed his next comments to her. "I'm Xander Harris by the way, nice to meet you."

"Not now Xander." Giles said without bother to look up from the book he was paging through.

"I'm just saying hello," and Xander shook his head, suddenly overcome by a strange sense of déjà vu.

Giles snorted and then asked the two students if he could help them and when it turned out they were actually looking for some books, gave them directions that sent them to the stacks on the mezzanine level. Buffy, Xander and Cordelia collected their things and after a moments confusion Giles followed them out so they could continue their discussion in the hallway.

It was a brief discussion. Giles would be looking for a spell to bar Angel from Buffy's place and Buffy would do what she could to warn her mother, without telling her everything about vampires and Slayers.

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Since they were headed that way, they picked up Will from her computer class. The redhead was alternately bouncy and terrified as Miss Calendar had asked her to run the class for her the next day if she were late. Buffy still had trouble even looking at the computer teacher so the two girls didn't hang around. Giles stepped into the room to talk with Ms. Calendar and when he came away, he was holding a book. Xander looked at him questioningly.

"She's been doing some research into our problem since Angel first changed. She thinks there may be something in here we can use."

Xander nodded, gave Miss Calendar a wave and then followed the librarian back to the library. He figured he'd see if Jonathan and pretty girl whose name he still hadn't gotten needed any help carrying their books.

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The next morning, when Xander found out that Willow and Buffy had had a pyjama party with weapons and didn't invite him, or at least take pictures of the event, he was very depressed. Although not as depressed as Willow was when she realized that Miss Calendar had made it to class after all and the work on lesson plans she'd done the day before was now wasted.

After school, Giles informed them that he had found a spell that would block Angel from entering their homes, so the girl's would be busy that night setting them up.

Xander found himself alone and... Restless, which wasn't really all that unusually for him, as he seemed to need less and less sleep. He'd actually been bored enough that he'd done his homework for something to do. The inaction eventually became annoying enough that he put the Enfield, the semi-automatic and the flechette gun (even if the thing was illegal, he really needed to get some feel for it) into their travel case and headed out to the range.

An hour of shooting holes in targets loosened him up. He'd put all three guns through their paces, even doing a passable fake out with the flechette gun by using two magazines that he changed every ten shots.

Of the three guns, the specialized semi-automatic was a dream and his groupings were much better, once he'd gotten use to the lack of recoil.

The first few shots were not to be discussed, ever.

He cleaned the guns, reloading the speed loaders and the moon clips. As he finished filling a clip for the semi and repacked the weapons into their case, he reminded himself to get more ammo. Even the Enfield was on its last hundred rounds, and he'd started with a thousand.

When he got back to his vehicle, he placed the gun case in the back of the SUV and then walked around and got in the driver's side.

"It's about time you came back."

Xander said something nasty in a language spoken by nomads living on the outer rim of the galaxy and turned to look at the blonde vampire sitting in the passenger seat. It appeared he should have listened to his own advice about cars and vampires. He hadn't of course, so he didn't even have any crosses on him at the moment.

Although, he did have the stun gun.

He was reaching for it when Spike put his hands up in an attempt to look harmless and started to talk.

"Now, now, there's no need for that, I just thought you might like your car keys back." Spike shifted one of his hands slightly and the set of keys Angelus had made off with jangled as they hung from his index finger. When Xander didn't move to take them, Spike just sighed a little and placed them on the dash.

"You know, you really should have gotten the locks replaced, or re-keyed or whatever it is they do to these things when someone has their keys stolen."

"What do you want Spike?"

The vampire looked affronted. "I told you, I just wanted to return..."

"What do you really want?" Xander asked again, impatient.

The vampire smirked, and Xander's heart skipped a beat. Not from fear, but because Jack's memories had alarming remembrances of a man who looked like Spike smirking in just the same way moments before he'd drag Jack off into trouble, or for mind blowing sex, or both.

Spike didn't try for either of those things, but he did answer him. "Had to see for myself, didn't I?"

Xander looked confused and Spike chuckled. "After Angelus told me about the Slayer's present I had to see for myself if you'd survived that as well. I mean, I'd thought Dru had taken care of you last time, and yet here's Angelus telling me all about killing you, again."

Xander shifted angrily and Spike stopped speaking for a moment, and then smirked once again. "Given how annoyed Dru was with the bastard, I figured you were probably up and going again."

"Why would that annoy Drusilla?"

Spike shrugged. "Don't know, do I? All she'll ever say about you and that other bloke you were with is that the two of you are wrong. Is he like you then? 'Cause I'm guessing what's wrong about you is that you can't die. Sort of a Highlander deal or something?"

Xander nodded. "Something like." As explanations went it was close enough, although instead of there could be only one, there was only one, at least until Halloween happened.

"Slayer and her group know?"

"Yes, sorry, no chance for blackmail there."

Spike looked Xander over. "Too bad."

The look he gave Xander right then had heat behind it, but he knew better than to take it too seriously. Jack's ex used to practice that look in the mirror. Not that Spike could have, because of the no reflection thing. Xander shook his head, snapping himself out of the combination of Jack's memories and his own musings. His hand started to move towards the stun gun again, wanting to end whatever this was.

"Hey now, none of that, I'm just doing you a favour."

"Why?" Xander asked, his voice a wary question.

Spike opened the door. "Because right now, I'd do just about anything to screw Angelus over. Which reminds me, someone in your group is going down tonight. Not exactly sure who, all I know is that they're an 'old enemy' and a serious threat to Angelus, tah."

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Spike slid out of the SUV, quietly closed the door and walked away leaving Xander to ponder the problem. The blond vampire managed to make it around the block and out of sight before he stumbled and dropped to the ground with a definite lack of grace. He'd used just about everything he had to pull that stunt off and he doubted he'd be able to get out of the wheelchair again for the next week. Shifting into a semi sitting position he looked towards his car, that was still about twenty feet away from him. A car that he would have to get to and use to drive back to the warehouse before he could reclaim his wheelchair. And he needed to do all of that before anyone missed him.

Standing would be faster, so he attempted just that, and ended up flat on his face.

"Well bugger, this is going to be fun."

As he started to inch his way to the car, he realized it was a very good thing that morning was still a long way off. Although he hoped it wouldn't take him that long. If he could manage it, he wanted to be home before Angelus, especially if the kid managed to screw his grandsire over. After all, watching Angelus seethe impotently was one of his true joys in life, or rather unlife.

Spike just hoped that Drusilla didn't realize he'd been to see the boy. He had to admit was probably unlikely, but he could hope.

Oh look, just another 15 feet to go.

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Old enemy? Of their group Giles was the oldest and a Watcher, so it could be him. He himself had old memories. But enemy implied something more personal or to be more specific, personal to Angelus. So who around here had been an Old Enemy?

Oh, fuck.

Xander pulled up in front of the school about 10 minutes later. He really hoped she wasn't crazy enough to be here alone at night, but if she were in danger it would be more likely to happen here than at her home, where she'd be relatively safe.

Xander threw himself out of the SUV, stopping only long enough to grab his gun case out of the back. The school would be locked down, but all of them had keys to the back of the library and he headed there at a dead run.

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Jenny couldn't catch her breath. She'd been running, running for her life with Death behind her, only to find him in front of her. Now he, in the form of Angelus was holding her head as he touched her lips with the fingers of his other hand.

"Sorry Jenny, this is where..."

The bullet entered Angelus' back at the upper left shoulder, causing him to grunt in pain and drop the annoying gypsy. He heard someone swear behind him and turned towards the voice to see a young man with a gun, standing beside an open case of some kind. That somebody was in the school and had just shot him was surprising. Who the shooter was, was impossible.

"Harris?"

The boy got three bullets into him before Angel managed to move out of the way. The other six rounds missed, burying themselves in the floor and the doors at the far end of the hallway.

Angelus was almost blind with pain and anger, but despite his injuries was obviously going to rush him. Xander dropped the empty gun into the case and traded it for the revolver he held in his other hand. Briefly, he lamented the fact that he never seemed to have explosive rounds on him when he really needed them and took his next shot. Angel took a bullet to the head (still a little high, damn it), staggering the vampire out of his charge. A second bullet went into his lower back as he turned and lurched towards a large arched window. The four shots after caught nothing but air as Angel left the building in a shower of glass and blood.

The vampire was already staggering away by the time Xander made it to the window, and as much as Xander wanted to go after him, Angelus would be out of range before he'd be able to make it outside. Briefly, he toyed with the idea of jumping, but even if the fall killed him and he came back, it would still take to long. Besides, if the injury didn't kill him then he'd have to either kill himself or wait for help and neither prospect sounded like fun.

"Xander?"

Miss Calendar was still on the floor, looking completely terrified and while the levity might not have been appropriate, Xander couldn't help himself. He held out a hand to her gave her his best Schwarzenegger. "Come with me if you want to live."

She fell back to the floor and started to laugh so hard he thought she'd tear herself apart. When the laughter changed to great heaving sobs, he knelt down beside her, pulled her into his arms and just held her until they ran out.

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Xander called Giles, who by this time had thankfully learned how to answer his cell phone. The Watcher made it to the school in very good time. Xander wouldn't have thought the old car could move that fast. Giles took one look at Miss Calendar and then bundled her into the vehicle.

"I'm going to take her to the hospital. I think she has injuries she hasn't even noticed yet."

Xander nodded. "I checked her classroom on the way out, it's been trashed. Once you get her to the hospital you might want to have her report it as a robbery gone bad, it would at least explain her injuries."

Giles nodded at the suggestion, then got in his car and took off.

Xander pick up his gun case and dug out his cell phone as he headed to his own vehicle. He dropped the case in the back as usual, and then called the girls to let them know what had happened. It was a conversation he wasn't looking forward to, as Angelus' latest attack would be one more weight to lay on Buffy's shoulders.


	10. Chapter 10

Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Torchwood belong to their perspective owners; I am not one of them. I'm just borrowing them for entertainment purposes and no money shall be made from this entertainment.

Blue Coats and Guarding the Rifts

By Colleen

Chapter 10

_To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer. _

_**~Farmer's Almanac, 1978**_

Willow took over Ms Calendar's classes for a few days, until the teacher got over being thrown around by Angelus and more or less dropped on her head when she was rescued. The teacher was bruised, strained, terrified and concussed and Giles had stayed with her at the hospital the entire time. Once she'd been released, he'd taken her back to his, putting her up in the guest room.

During this time, she told him everything of what she'd been working on, what had been destroyed and what, with work, might be recovered. She'd found a way to translate the curse, she could do it again. Of course, Angelus knew that, and would do his level best to keep her from recreating the spell and this time they might not get any warning.

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Spike made it back before Angelus, though not by much and only because the other vampire had to go to ground (or in this case, sewer) to give himself a little time to heal.

Wheeling himself back into the warehouse, Drusilla gave him a confused look, as if she'd lost track of him. Since she didn't immediately mention being annoyed at him for visiting the undying Mr. Harris he figured that Angel's problems were taking up most of her mind.

When Angelus staggered in 30 minutes later, Spike was impressed with the damage. "What, did you hire yourself out as a paper target or something?"

Angel snarled at him, and then went and plucked the puppy Dru had been carting around lately out of her lap. He drained the thing dry and tossed the body into the trash.

"Oh, poor Miss Sunshine, and she was ever so smart."

Angel looked at her, shaking his head before collapsing on the nearest piece of furniture.

"Did Daddy take care of the nasty teacher?"

"No, Daddy did not. Because someone I already killed was there to help her."

Drusilla narrowed her eyes and looked him over. "I said he did it wrong, didn't I Spike?"

"Sorry luv, did what wrong?"

"The Slayer's pressie, on Valentine's Day."

Angel sat up. "I did not do that wrong, he was dead."

Spike chuckled. "It must not have taken."

Angel appeared to want to snarl something back at Spike, but was just too damn tired to bother.

"So, does this mean you're going to become Buffy-whipped Angel again shortly?"

This time he did snarl. "No, I did manage to destroy the spell and the computer she was translating it on. It will probably take time for her to recreate it."

"So, you'll get her next time, that it?"

"Yes." Angelus said with a hiss before standing and stalking off, stripping his tattered shirt from his body as he went.

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Miss Calendar did not go out after dark. For the next little while in fact, other than Buffy, none of them went out after dark if they could help it and even Buffy's patrolling was curtailed for a time when she passed out on the steps to the upper stacks in the library. Panicked, they rushed her to the hospital for injuries taken in the fall, the result of what would turn out to be a very severe case of the flu.

Of course Buffy wouldn't be Buffy if a trip to the hospital were actually normal and she ended up taking care of an invisible demon that was killing kids by draining their life-force.

During her illness, they kept watch over Buffy, in case Angelus found out and made an attempt on her life, but nothing happened. For once, the master vampire appeared to be out of the loop. It was at least one less thing for them to worry about that week.

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Close to a month after Buffy and most of their classmates had recovered from the flu, the entire Scooby group, including Miss Calendar, met in the library. Briefly, they discussed an event from the night before. Buffy, who'd been checking out the school as part of her normal patrol, stopped a boy from killing his girlfriend. Problem was, once she'd stopped them, they couldn't remember why they'd started fighting in the first place and the gun she thought she'd seen was now nowhere to be found. Not sure what to make of it, they tabled the problem and moved on to Miss Calendar to discuss the soul curse.

"I'm sorry; I was hoping that since a lot of the ground work on the translations didn't have to be done again that it would go fairly quickly. But without being able to use the school's system at night... It's just going to take longer."

Xander sighed. Everyone was depressed now, but Buffy managed to take hers to a higher or perhaps lower plateau with that piece of news. Not that anyone blamed her.

"You know," Xander said. "I might know someone, who knows someone, who would have a computer system that makes whatever it is the school uses look like an abacus." Torchwood Three's mainframe could probably chew through the problem in a day or two, hell, maybe even an hour or two, but Xander was thinking that if Jack could get them some help from UNIT it would probably be safer.

Miss Calendar looked uncomfortable about the idea though. "I don't know. I'm not sure I like the idea of someone I don't know having access to that material. There's a lot of damage that could be done with it, especially if the caster doesn't know what they're doing."

Xander grimaced and nodded. He could easily see that happening with UNIT. Curiosity was an overriding habit with most of their people, or they wouldn't be working for them in the first place.

Oz, who was soaking up the conversation, actually spoke up with an idle thought. "It's too bad that you didn't follow the golden rule."

"Do onto other's as you would have done on to you?" Buffy asked, slightly confused.

Oz blinked out of whatever thoughts he had gone onto since saying that. "Ah, no. The golden rule of computers."

Miss Calendar's eyes widened. "Always make a backup."

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Two minutes later, they were all standing in the computer lab.

"I don't know how I could have forgotten."

"You were concussed Jenny and in a very stressful situation."

"I know, but..." She shook her head. "It may have been destroyed when Angel trashed the place, but I did make a disc. I popped it before... before and I put it down... ah, damn it, somewhere, I don't remember where."

Giles came up behind her and placed his hands on her shoulders. "But that somewhere was in this room?"

She nodded.

He looked around the room. "Okay everyone, computer disc, here, somewhere. Miss Calendar and Willow, you should probably check through the discs on the desk, in case it ended back in there. The rest of us, we need to tear this place apart. Not one inch of this place goes un-searched."

During the search, they saved the area of the desk and filing cabinet for last since Willow and Miss Calendar were going through the other discs there, so of course that was where they found it once they'd pulled the desk away from the cabinet.

Jenny took the disc and carefully slotted it into the computer. Almost immediately, text in a language none of them could read started to scroll down in a left-hand window. "Yes, this is it, please still be okay, please." A translation program window appeared and it's progress bar begin its march across the screen, once it reached its end, an English translation started to scroll down in a right-hand window.

"Yes!"

"We have it." Buffy said, her voice dazed. "We can get Angel back?"

"Yes we can." Miss Calendar said, triumph in her voice.

Xander leaned up against a desk and sighed. He'd avoided voicing this question until now, because why rock the boat when you don't have to, but the boat was at the dock… and that was enough of that metaphor.

"The question is, should we?"

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'Ask one little question', Xander thought, cringing.

Fifteen minutes later and back in the library with a print out, a laptop and the disc, everyone was either ignoring Xander, angry with Xander or both.

Slumped in a seat at the table, he looked everyone over as they discussed what they would need, and who might actually be capable of doing the spell.

"You didn't answer my question."

Buffy slammed her fist down the table, making it creak alarmingly. "Damn it Xander, I know you hate Angel, but..."

"I don't."

"Oh, come on Xander. You out and out told me you'd kill him if you had the chance."

"No, I said I'd kill Angelus."

"That's the same thing."

"No it's not and you know it. Angelus is a demon; Angel was the man fighting that demon. I'm not saying maybe we shouldn't do it because I hate Angel, I'm saying it because I don't want to hurt Angel that much."

"What?"

"This is a curse Buffy, not a cure. Do you really want to take him, take Angel and meld him to a demon again? Do you really want to make him remember everything the demon has done since he's been gone? I know you want him back, but is it the right thing to do?"

Buffy sat, hitting the chair only by luck and started to hyperventilate, her eyes wide with horror.

Giles cleared his throat. "While what Xander says is true, I have to be a bit more pragmatic."

Xander tilted his head upward, curious. "By all means."

"Angelus is a master vampire, one that to date, we haven't been able to stop and who is more unpredictable than any vampire we've come up against before. We are not having any luck against him face to face. This curse may be our best way of stopping him from doing further damage. From causing more death. By that alone, I would say we need to do this. However, I also believe that given how Angel feels about the deeds done by the demon previously, that he would be willing to do anything to stop him, even if it means having to become him again."

Xander looked at the Watcher with a good deal of respect. "You do pragmatic really well."

Giles snorted. "Yes, well, that being said, are we in agreement about doing this spell?"

"I have no more objections." Xander said. Everyone else nodded, Buffy looking almost as if she were praying as she did.

"Good, Jenny?"

"I'm not sure I have the power to pull this off by myself, but I think with Willow's help we could do it, soon."

An old memory thumped at Xander's mind. "Giles, did Amy ever come to see you, about the witchcraft thing?"

"Ah, yes. I gave her some starting material and an introduction to a coven I know of in England. I think she's been getting advice from them by," he waved a hand towards Willow's laptop, "computer mail."

"E-mail."

"What?"

"Never mind. Do you think she could help us as well, with the spell?"

"I think I can do this," Willow said, "But I'll check with her. Besides, three is a powerful number; we might have a better chance if we did it that way."

Jenny agreed. "If she is willing." She hesitated, glancing at Buffy. "It's going to take a few days. There are supplies I have to re-buy and we have to see who is best suited to doing what as far as the casting goes."

Everyone nodded, willing to do their part. Even Buffy, who appeared as if she were ready to crawl out of her skin. But she knew that a few days wait was better than messing the spell up. They might only have one chance at this.

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That night, the school janitor shot and killed a female teacher and Giles, who was in his office trying to find his Orb of Thesulah from wherever it had rolled off to, jumped the maintenance man after he attempted to leave the scene. Once again, the gun had disappeared and the janitor couldn't for the life of him figure out why he'd started to fight with the teacher in the first place.

Preparations for the soul spell got a little lost after that, as the school was invaded first by snakes, and then later by wasps. Eventually it got sorted out, but not before Buffy and Angelus were both possessed by the spirits that were replaying the scene with the gun over and over again. But this time, Buffy ended up the shooter and Angel was the person being shot. Since he could survive the bullet, the female spirit possessing him was able to stop male ghost possessed Buffy from taking her/his own life and forgave him/her for what had happened. This broke the haunting and the school returned to normal, or as normal as it could get.

It also solidified Buffy's decision about the soul curse. For a moment she seemed to see Angel once again where Angelus was now.

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Angelus gnashed his teeth as he attempted to scrub away the feeling of pure love he'd been possessed by. It was bad enough that he wasn't able to get near the computer teacher since his first attempt at her, but Dru had been spouting off about 'what once was lost was found again,' which obviously meant the spell. He figured he'd just cut his losses and finally take care of the Slayer and this happens.

"They say when you've drawn blood, you've exfoliated."

Angel snarled at Spike, who just smirked back at him from his wheelchair.

"Poor, poor Angel. All the pieces will be together soon." Drusilla blinked back tears. "They're going to change everything."

Angel stopped washing and grabbed a towel to dry off. "No, the only thing that is going to change is how much time they have to live."

"Sure it will." Spike said, with as much sarcasm as he could muster, which was a lot.

Angel grabbed a shirt and slipped into it, looking at Spike like he wanted his spleen on a plate.

"Oh, yes, oh yes, yes, yes. Something's coming, something soon, sooner than all of the pieces can find each other." Drusilla weaved back and forward in place for a moment, then snapped out of it, looking like she hadn't realized she'd been saying anything.

Angel stared at her appraisingly, but seemed to realize that he wouldn't get anything further out of her at the moment.

"Let's get outta here. I need a really vile kill before sun up to wipe this crap out of my system."

Drusilla growled happily. "Of course. We'll find you a nice toddler." She looked over to Spike. "Want to come, pet?"

"Leave him Dru. I 'm sure he'd be hell on wheels, but we don't have much time." He walked over to Spike and put his hands on his shoulders. "Gotta travel light. Sorry. Try to have fun without me." He and Dru left, leaving an angry Spike behind. As soon as they were gone, Spike smiled. "Oh, I will." The blond vampire stood. It had taken time since that stunt he'd pulled a month ago, but he was back. He kicked the wheelchair away. "Oh, I definitely will, and sooner than you think."

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"Anyway, I talked to Amy on the phone and she'll be back in a few days. Her dad insisted she visit the grandparents before they go off on some kind of world tour, but it was lousy timing. We'd finally worked out the kinks between the three of us and we were ready, and now we'll have to wait until she's back before doing the spell." Willow gazed into the bonfire as she said this.

Xander pulled his great coat around him; his backside a little chilled even this close to the fire. "That's good, although it doesn't make me feel much better about being ordered by our loving principal to attend the swim team's victory party. Especially a party at night and outside."

Oz, who had been on depressed Buffy watch came back and Xander gave his seat up to him and headed over to see if he couldn't get Buffy to come back to the fire. He was part way down to where she was sitting on the beach when he noticed one of the swim team members attempting to use the 'sensitive guy technique to pick up chicks' on her. He was going to break that up, when he heard Jonathan calling for help.

Heading towards the cry for help, he found another member of the swim team dunking Jonathan's head in the drink's tub that was filled with ice and water while the other macho idiot on the team stood around and cheered him on.

As Xander approached, he riffled Jack's memories for something he usually avoided. The Captain had at one time been a very good torturer. If you absolutely needed them to spill their guts, you went to him. This also meant that he was very knowledgeable about how to create pain, with the least amount of physical damage.

Two fingers into the right nerve had the swim jock down in the sand, writhing, allowing Jonathan to pullhis head back out of the drink tub.

"Wow, you might want to watch those muscle spasms, if that happened during a race you'd be screwed." Xander gave the swimmer his best evil smile.

Jonathan, dripping and freezing, looked a little surprised at the guy on the ground. Buffy and the guy who'd been hitting on her showed up and Xander let them pick swim team guy up while he manoeuvred Jonathan away from the collected idiots. Jonathan pulled away from him and started to walk angrily down the beach. Xander followed and pulled off his great coat and wrapped the other teen in it once the young man had run out of steam and collapsed, sitting down in the sand abruptly.

"Those, those, those, those..."

"You can call them bad names Jonathan, I don't mind."

"Those assholes!"

"About sums them up."

Jonathan pulled the great coat around him a little tighter and looked over at Xander as he sat down in the sand beside him. "Thanks." He said, a little sheepishly.

"De nada."

"Well, isn't this cozy."

Xander turned to see Spike behind him. "Well, shit."

"Nice to see you too Harris. Who's the friend?"

Jonathan turned to look at Spike and swallowed in sudden fear. "Ah, I'm, ah..."

Xander had the feeling that Jonathan knew exactly what Spike was, or at least recognized the danger. "He's going back to the party." Jonathan's eyes bugged out and Xander continued in a quiet whisper to the frightened teen. "And he's going to get Buffy."

Jonathan nodded and got up, backing away from Spike. "Right, I'll just head back to the party, ah, nice to meet you." He cringed as he said that, then turned, and bolted, coat dragging behind him as he ran.

Spike sighed. "You didn't have to do that."

Xander gave him a look and then stood, brushing sand off his pants as he did.

"Honest, I'm just here to tell you that you need to get a step on with that spell. Dru knows you have it and she says that something else is brewing, although even she doesn't know what it is."

Xander was about to reply when he heard a muffled scream down the beach. He narrowed his eyes at Spike, who just shrugged.

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Jonathan ended up shucking Xander's coat and hoped the other teen wouldn't kill him for it, but he couldn't run in it. He passed the swim team heading down to the water for a midnight dip, but was too worried to be afraid of them. The team themselves were actually more interested in the water than another chance to bully the young man and they passed without incident.

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Xander headed down the beach towards the scream, with Spike tagging along out of curiosity. Along the way, he found the great coat and picked it up, shaking the sand from it as he continued to walk. He wasn't surprised that Jonathan had to dump it; running in it had probably been killing him.

A little further along and slightly higher up the beach, Xander stopped when his foot hit something that squished. He stepped back, wrinkling his nose at the smell in the air and fumbled for the flashlight he kept in one of the coats pockets. Spike stepped up beside him, equally disgusted by the smell and able to see what Xander couldn't.

"You might not want to look, it isn't pretty."

Xander threw him a glare in the dark and then pulled out the flashlight, turning it on. He took another step back, annoyed to find that the vampire was right. A pile of clothes, torn skin and blood were all that was left of whoever it was. Spike peered a little closer at the mess. "You're friend, the runner; he didn't strike me as the tattoo type."

"He isn't." Xander said swallowing, because yes, that this could be all that was left of Jonathan was what first occurred to him.

Spike pointed at a tattoo of a shark on the shredded skin.

"I think." Xander said, "That this is one of the swim team members."

"I think that this was one of the swim team members."

Xander figured kicking Spike wouldn't help matters, but he was sorely tempted. The blond vampire wrinkled his nose again and pulled out a cigarette, lighting it in an attempt to kill some of the smell. He looked over at Xander. "Want one?" He said, indicating the smoke. Xander glanced at him briefly and shook his head. "No, only after sex." He stopped and groaned lightly. "I have got to stop saying things like that."

Xander took a closer look at the vampire. "I'm surprised this is bothering you smell wise, it's just flesh and blood after all. I'd have thought you'd be use to it."

Spike shook his head. "There's something else there, I can't place it, but it's really rank." He took another drag on the cigarette. "So, what are you going to do about this?"

Xander pulled out his phone. "Call the police with an anonymous tip, not much else I can do at the moment." He called it in, moving along the beach towards the party as he did. They met up with Jonathan, who was on his way back. "Hey, oh, you found your coat, good." He said, fidgeting and attempting to avoid looking at Spike.

"And Buffy?" Spike asked with humour in his voice.

"We're going to die now, aren't we?"

Spike raised an eyebrow at that.

"Jonathan?"

He looked miserable. "Willow said she caught a ride home with some guy."

Xander sighed and face planted into one of his hands. "Great." He looked back down the beach, towards the sort of body. "Go back to the party and stick with Willow and Oz and Cordelia. I'll be back shortly."

"Or he could stay here, and we'll have a smaller party."

Jonathan looked as if he was about to pass out at the suggestion. Spike finally took pity on the kid and made a waving motion towards the party. "Go."

He looked at Xander who nodded and Jonathan went. Heading back to the party at his best speed, he hoped that even if Buffy was gone, Xander's other friends might be able to help with whatever it was about Spike that scared the hell out of him.

Hoped, but didn't quite believe.


End file.
